How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Ben D]

That's because CO2 ppm is not the primary cause but acts as a forcing factor.

What exactly in the post does this refer to?

[Ben D]

Changes in C02 ppm has been tracking changes in ave. temperature.

CO2 ppm is now much higher:

Haha....yes, the CO2 levels are much higher....with China and India building coal based power stations at a record pace....the amount of human derived CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere since 1997 is much greater than the 80/90s period when the CO2 ppm was tracking global temperature......but wait for it.....far from the CO2 ppm tracking the global average temperature since then...instead while CO2 ppm input has increased for the last 18 years at a greater rate than ever before, there has been 18 year pause in warming....haha...

The blue is Mauna Loa observed CO2 levels..... Red is observed RSS global temperature... Green is Trend line

[Ben D]

A carbon tax is irrelevant given the fact that tax revenues will be used for more consumption.

It's not irrelevant to the tax payers regardless of what the trillions are spent on when agw is a scam to rip them off....many don't believe it anymore, but there is a real universal principle behind the term 'morality' you know....

[Luther Blissett]

We are polluting this world and should stop.

[coffin_dodger]

We are polluting this world and should stop.

So, why don't we?

[Luther Blissett]

We are polluting this world and should stop.

So, why don't we?

There is too much money to be made in the meantime off of coal and fossil fuels by the powers that may be.

[Luther Blissett]

That Was Easy: In Just 60 Years, Neoliberal Capitalism Has Nearly Broken Planet Earth
Pair of new studies show how various forms of human activity, driven by a flawed economic system and vast consumption, is laying waste to Earth's natural systems

Humanity's rapacious growth and accelerated energy needs over the last generation—particularly fed by an economic system that demands increasing levels of consumption and inputs of natural resources—are fast driving planetary systems towards their breaking point, according to a new pair of related studies.

Prepared by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the first study looks specifically at how "four of nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as a result of human activity." Published in the journal Science* on Thursday, the 18 researchers involved with compiling evidence for the report—titled 'Planetary Boundaries 2.0'—found that when it comes to climate change, species extinction and biodiversity loss, deforestation and other land-system changes, and altered biogeochemical cycles (such as changes to how key organic compounds like phosphorus and nitrogen are operating in the environment), the degradation that has already take place is driving the Earth System, as a whole, into a new state of imbalance.

"Transgressing a boundary increases the risk that human activities could inadvertently drive the Earth System into a much less hospitable state, damaging efforts to reduce poverty and leading to a deterioration of human well-being in many parts of the world, including wealthy countries," said Professor Will Steffen, a researcher at the Centre and the Australian National University, Canberra, who was lead author for both studies.

In addition to the four boundaries that have already been crossed, the study looked at five other ways in which the planetary systems are under assault by human activity. They include: stratospheric ozone depletion; ocean acidification; freshwater use; atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms); and the introduction of novel entities into ecosystems (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics).

"I don't think we've broken the planet but we are creating a much more difficult world," Sarah Cornell, another report author, told Reuters.

In this interview with Wired last year, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, described the idea about planetary boundaries in details:



Related to the findings of the first study, the second report examines what it calls the "Great Acceleration" and is an assessment of the speed and influence that specific factors have had in damaging the planetary systems described in Planetary Boundaries 2.0. Using a series of indicators, the study compares the relationship, over time, between 12 'socio-economic factors'—including economic growth (GDP); population; foreign direct investment; energy consumption; and water use—on one side with 12 'Earth system trends'—like the carbon cycle; the nitrogen cycle and biodiversity—on the other.

Using what it calls a "planetary dashboard," the research charts the spread and speed of human activity from the start of the industrial revolution in 1750 to 2010, and the subsequent changes in the Earth System – e.g. greenhouse gas levels, ocean acidification, deforestation and biodiversity deterioration. The analysis found that increased human activity—and "predominantly the global economic system"—has unseated all other factors as the primary driver of change in the Earth System, which the report describes as "the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes." The most striking, i.e. "accelerated," changes to that system have occurred in the last sixty years.

"It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a geological force at the planetary-scale," said Steffen, who also led the Acceleration study.

The conclusion that the world's dominant economic model—a globalized form of neoliberal capitalism, largely based on international trade and fueled by extracting and consuming natural resources—is the driving force behind planetary destruction will not come as a shock, but the model's detailed description of how this has worked since the middle of the 20th century makes a more substantial case than many previous attempts.

"When we first aggregated these datasets, we expected to see major changes but what surprised us was the timing. Almost all graphs show the same pattern. The most dramatic shifts have occurred since 1950. We can say that around 1950 was the start of the Great Acceleration," says Steffen. "After 1950 we can see that major Earth System changes became directly linked to changes largely related to the global economic system. This is a new phenomenon and indicates that humanity has a new responsibility at a global level for the planet."

The paper makes a point to acknowledge that consumption patterns and the rise of what has become known as the Anthropocene Era does not fall equally on the human population and its examination of the economic system which is underpinning planetary destruction is one rife with inequality, in which certain populations consume at vastly higher levels than others.

According to the report, "The new study also concludes that the bulk of economic activity, and so too, for now, the lion's share of consumption, remain largely within the OECD countries, which in 2010 accounted for about 74% of global GDP but only 18% of the global population. This points to the profound scale of global inequality, which distorts the distribution of the benefits of the Great Acceleration and confounds international efforts, for example climate agreements, to deal with its impacts on the Earth System."

A worrying trend, notes the paper, is how a growing global middle class—exemplified by those in the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—is an increasing threat to the planet as the consumer mindset established in the OECD nations, particularly the U.S., spreads.

In an interview with the Guardian, Steffen spoke clearly about the overall impacts of the two new studies as he sounded the alarm over humanity's trajectory. "People say the world is robust and that’s true, there will be life on Earth, but the Earth won’t be robust for us," he said. "Some people say we can adapt due to technology, but that’s a belief system, it’s not based on fact. There is no convincing evidence that a large mammal, with a core body temperature of 37C, will be able to evolve that quickly. Insects can, but humans can’t and that’s a problem."

"It’s clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter’s generation will find it increasingly hard to survive. History has shown that civilisations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn’t change. That’s where we are today."

What increasing amounts of strong evidence shows, he said, is that there are "tipping points" the human race should simply not "want to cross."

Correction: An earlier version of the article stated the study on Planetary Boundaries appeared in the journal Nature. That was incorrect. The study appeared in the journal Science and that has now been corrected.

[DrEvil]

Concerning the NOAA - NASA claim that 2104 was the hottest year on record.....it was typical agw scallywag spin as later under questioning by skeptics, they admitted the probability of it being true was 48%...now here on a supplemental page their own website it turns out that it was....get this...."more unlikely than likely" that 2014 was the hottest year on record.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13/supplemental/page-1

And btw...concerning msm agw global climate change hype wrt hottest year ever since records began in 1880.....guess how many hottest years ever have occurred since 1880?

21 in total if we include 2014.....they are....1881 1889 1926 1931 1937 1938 1940 1941 1944 1973 1980 1981 1987 1988 1990 1995 1997 1998 2005 2010 2014.

Actually this warming trend is natural as the earth is still coming out of the last ice age so everyone should expect that glacier melt and sea level rise are normal under the circumstances...so say non-agw climate scientists.

It's only since the agw fear campaign began in the 1990s that new warm records were attributed to mankind...and the UN and its members devised a plan to CO2-tax mankind to mitigate the warming trend...else we will all die from the hot hot hot...so pay up if you don't want to die!

2014 has the highest probability of being warmest compared to the other top contenders, which you conveniently ignored (or more likely, didn't know).

NOAA
Probability of
warmest year
2014 ~48%
2010 ~18%
2005 ~13%
2013 ~6%
1998 ~5%

NASA
Probability of
warmest year
2014 ~38%
2010 ~23%
2005 ~17%
1998 ~4%

From here (p.5, pdf): http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201501.pdf

And if Ars Technica is an alarmist site you should go there and set people straight.
Here's the relevant story: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/01/ ... -globally/

[Ben D]

^ But NASA is still only 38% confident that it was the warmist....and you can see from the competing hottest years that the pause extends from 1998 to now....and so the deviation of agw predictions from observed grows ever larger!

[Monk]

You have to go beyond 18 years and the pauses to see the upward trend:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

You have to be joking.......that graph is irrelevant to our discussion!!! You missed the point that there is no disagreement in the amount of warming...but the pause in increased warming in the 21st century has caused such a deviation between the agw computer model predictions and the actual observed temperatures, that more doubt is being cast on the UN IPCC agw claims.

No, I'm not joking, and the graph is completely relevant. You stick to short periods to prove your point (i.e., the blue trend lines) and ignore the longer, red trend line.

Also,

"Contrary To Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate"

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/0 ... -accurate/

[Monk]

That's because CO2 ppm is not the primary cause but acts as a forcing factor.

What exactly in the post does this refer to?

To the claim that human activity is the "predominate cause of global warming." Rather, CO2 ppm has a forcing factor. More details in the NAS reports shared earlier.

[Monk]

Changes in C02 ppm has been tracking changes in ave. temperature.

CO2 ppm is now much higher:

Haha....yes, the CO2 levels are much higher....with China and India building coal based power stations at a record pace....the amount of human derived CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere since 1997 is much greater than the 80/90s period when the CO2 ppm was tracking global temperature......but wait for it.....far from the CO2 ppm tracking the global average temperature since then...instead while CO2 ppm input has increased for the last 18 years at a greater rate than ever before, there has been 18 year pause in warming....haha...

The blue is Mauna Loa observed CO2 levels..... Red is observed RSS global temperature... Green is Trend line

Again, go back to the escalator:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

See the green lines? They move up and down readily.

See the blue lines? Lots of pauses in the past.

See the red line? It's moving upward. That's global warming.

[Monk]

A carbon tax is irrelevant given the fact that tax revenues will be used for more consumption.

It's not irrelevant to the tax payers regardless of what the trillions are spent on when agw is a scam to rip them off....many don't believe it anymore, but there is a real universal principle behind the term 'morality' you know....

It's irrelevant because the tax revenues earned will be churned back into the system for more oil consumption.

And that in turn won't matter because of peak oil.

[DrEvil]

^ But NASA is still only 38% confident that it was the warmist....

And your point is?

[NeonLX]

Quit buying new shit.

Quit driving the car (I don't care if it's a Prius or a Tesla--it's still a car, and operates on the pavement, and needs to be parked in a lot; all of which need to be maintained).

Quit eating meat--the meat industry is very energy- and resource-intensive (I used to be in the cattle bidness).