How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Wombaticus Rex]

I don't even talk about Global Warming for a small handful of reasons.

1. First and foremost, it's not important. Humanity at the present time is faced with a massive laundry list of Serious Problems and Existential Risks, and climate change is not ranked very high among them. We are seeing real-time consequences for human pollution and waste right now that are considerably more dangerous and catastrophic than the slow burn of climate change. If we're going to take up the fragile bandwidth of the American Brain with an environmental issue, Global Warming is very suspiciously trivial in comparison to, say, contaminated water.

2. It's a deliberately contentious issue. There's been a lot of social engineering behind this to ensure that. Al Gore and Tony Blair are the elite-level version of Mr. Gunderson or Mr. Icke...everything they touch turns to shit and we should be wary of any cause they champion. Actually getting to the point of being able to even explain my stance on this issue invariably takes a lot of fucking time. Climate Change has been reduced to a mere binary trap -- it's either the most important issue facing humanity or it's a vast left wing conspiracy, so tell me in one sentence or less, where do YOU stand? That's not a conversation I find very interesting.

3. I really do doubt the data and the models and especially the people pushing this. I was raised to be a liberal environmentalist and I knew about the Club of Rome long before I was told it was "the bad guys." My first grappling with complex modeling was trying to replicate the work of Paul Ehrlich and understand how he came to his conclusions. While I find Catton's massive tome "Overshoot" to be a compelling case, I find Ehrlich's work to be curiously dumb and full of holes, which is a view a great many of his colleagues in the hard sciences have shared for decades now. Furthermore, I find the contention that we as humans understand our planet, in it's entirety, well enough to model it accurately to be little more than fucking hilarious arrogance from the The Usual Suspects.

4. My opinion is not constructive. In light of all this, avoiding the topic is really the only constructive thing I can do. I'm not interested in debating it, there will be no value emerging from the debate no matter what the final result, and furthermore, my opinion is too complicated to be reduced to something easily explainable to anyone without a background in the issue. I hope I did an adequate job here, though.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

I suppose another question might be, how bad could it get?



What's not factored into the projections of 2-3 ppm annually is the release of sequestered methane/CO2 in permafrost (which is now soaring) or oceanic absorption rates of CO2 (which are declining). So say 2-3 ppm become 5-6 ppm in say 10 years. Then what? The projection takes us to 900ppm by 2200. Now make that 2100. Does it just stop at that point or continue to climb at say 15ppm? Understand it's fairly hot by then. And then there's this...

From Impact From The Deep-.pdf - Peter Ward (Scientific American, 2006)

"A new model for mass extinctions at the end of the Permian period 251 million years ago
and the end Triassic 50 million years later explains how intense global warming could
trigger deaths in the sea and on land. Trouble begins with widespread volcanic activity
that releases enormous volumes of carbon dioxide and methane (1). The gases cause
rapid global warming (2). A warmer ocean absorbs less oxygen from the atmosphere
(3). Low oxygen (anoxia) destabilizes the chemocline, where oxygenated water meets
water permeated with hydrogen sulfi de (H2S) generated by bottom-dwelling anaerobic
bacteria (4). As H2S concentrations build and oxygen falls, the chemocline rises
abruptly to the ocean surface (5). Green and purple photosynthesizing sulfur bacteria,
which consume H2S and normally live at chemocline depth, now inhabit the H2S-rich
surface waters while oxygen-breathing ocean life suffocates (6). H2S also diffuses
into the air, killing animals and plants on land (7) and rising to the troposphere to
attack the planet’s ozone layer (8). Without the ozone shield, the sun’s ultraviolet (UV)
radiation kills remaining life (9).

How many gamblers do we have out there and what are you willing to wager that we are not already in process wrt to another Mass Extinction event? And if you bet wrong, what do you lose?

1. First and foremost, it's not important.

I strongly disagree. If the above is even remotely possible, I would posit that -nothing- could be more important. This view is not mine alone. We've been warned.

"We don't look after the planet and the air properly"





FWIW

~C

[Wombaticus Rex]

All of us will very likely be dead in 2200. Dealing with the "massive laundry list" I was referring to would have the same effect as "combating climate change" directly, right? In other words, even just by dealing with contaminated water, eliminating those root causes would not coincidentally reduce emissions and improve air quality and reduce the toxin load on our oceans and....etc.

(Meanwhile, "hey! you're drinking arsenic!" is a much more potent memetic hook than "your great-grandkids will suffer for what you're doing.")

[Sounder]

Hey tasmic, thanks for the pointer towards that Alan Carter fellow. That guy is smart.

Well put Wombat. In the past I have stayed away from this issue because of similar feelings. But hey it’s just about the only game in town.

For smith; you asked the other ‘camp’ to study the issue more, so I did. In reading some of the anti sites, I can see how you see these folks as planet fuckers. I also find much of their politics to be odious. Still, pretences should not carry an argument and bad people are right about some things and good people are wrong about some things.

Wombaticus wrote…

Furthermore, I find the contention that we as humans understand our planet, in its entirety, well enough to model it accurately to be little more than fucking hilarious arrogance from the The Usual Suspects.

The emotional investment in the accuracy of the model is what staggers my imagination.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Also, it's bit inaccurate/dramatic -- both qualities I'm fond of myself, btw -- to say "nothing could be more important." It's just another Existential Risk, dood! If we get directly hit by Apophis in the meantime, that's suddenly a lot more important than your most important Important thing. Same goes for passing through a random galactic ion storm and getting microwaved to death by a threat we never saw coming. Same goes for the release of who-knows-what pathogen they're cooking up in Fort Deitrick or Kaiser Permanente.

They're all equally important because they all hit that same horizon line of "OH FUCK WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE GUYS" -- after that, it's just increasingly meaningless degrees of what happens to the rubble afterwards.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

All of us will very likely be dead in 2200. Dealing with the "massive laundry list" I was referring to would have the same effect as "combating climate change" directly, right? In other words, even just by dealing with contaminated water, eliminating those root causes would not coincidentally reduce emissions and improve air quality and reduce the toxin load on our oceans and....etc.

(Meanwhile, "hey! you're drinking arsenic!" is a much more potent memetic hook than "your great-grandkids will suffer for what you're doing.")

I see myself as more concerned with the potential impact on all species WR, not just the human one. And no, I don't see equating addressing your massive laundry list (which is important to be sure) as having the same effect as combating climate change directly. It's more about creating a full understanding of the relationship between CO2 and a warming planet and the resulting potentials - which you have described as "not important". Contaminated water and toxins in the ocean will not acidify them to the degree that liberation of CO2 will do.

I certainly understand the importance of the meme, but I would alter your scope a bit.

"Hey! you're drinking arsenic" addresses only water quality, which as I said, has little impact on CO2. An important given but not directly related.

Hey, you won't have great great grandchildren, due to population controls in effect and put in place as a last ditch effort to mitigate humanities need to un-sequester CO2. Less people, less need to warm them or move them or feed them, ergo less need to burn coal or pump oil from the ground. Sorry if this this sounds "dramatic' but if you don't think it's a distinct possibility, disregard it then at your great grandchildrens peril.

Apples and Oranges - Oranges being a shitload more nutritious in this case.

As for existential risk, sure we could be hit by an asteroid, but there is not much to do about it. And as I was just thinking about it, if this were a possibility, one which those who warned the Ariel schoolchildren about air quality would (I hope) be fully aware of, why bother warning us we are doing harm to the earth? Anyways, I tend to focus on things we can do something about, like CO2. Which makes them not "equally important". Harm to the air was the key concept there BTW, in case you missed it.

I suppose we'll just have to disagree on what constitutes what's important. The future will judge and as I've said elsewhere, I can hope for nothing better than to be wrong.

An interesting question which maybe worthy of it's own thread. It's kind of based on that film "The Box" or something like that.

So, say you were given a scenario along these line. The earth and all it's species will perish in 1000 years if you don't push the button, due to the reasons I postulated above. This is a certainty for purposes of this exercise. Or- if you push the button, all humanity will perish at that moment, but the earth and it's remaining species will continue business as usual, subject to the earths natural forces.

Without altering the equation, what would you do?

[Wombaticus Rex]

I'd assume the certainty was a lie for control purposes of the test. "There is always a way."

[Cosmic Cowbell]

You altered the equation. Captain Kirk would be proud of you...but you have to make choice.

[tazmic]

Hey tasmic, thanks for the pointer towards that Alan Carter fellow. That guy is smart.

I'm glad you are enjoying him, I'd hoped you would.

Well put Wombat

x2. Mucho doublings of respect Honest & intelligent.

I don't have much respect for the video Cosmic posted however, which suggests that 'The Aliens don't care about humans, until we start hurting the green things, then they come over all concerned'. Well, ain't that very nice of them. (It does seem to sum up a common sentiment within the extremes of the green movement though. It reminds me of folk on the Derrick Jensen forum lamenting the fate of a poor tree that had bust out of it's tiny concrete square, only to fall to the ground to die. Powerful imagery indeed, enough so that no one appeared to notice the crumbling, decayed council housing behind, full of humans that would suffer a similar fate if they ever could bust out of their own concrete squares...)

In other news:

Glaciologists are this week arguing over how a highly contentious claim about the speed at which glaciers are melting came to be included in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In 1999 New Scientist reported a comment by the leading Indian glaciologist Syed Hasnain, who said in an email interview with this author that all the glaciers in the central and eastern Himalayas could disappear by 2035.

Hasnain, of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, who was then chairman of the International Commission on Snow and Ice's working group on Himalayan glaciology, has never repeated the prediction in a peer-reviewed journal. He now says the comment was "speculative".

Despite the 10-year-old New Scientist report being the only source, the claim found its way into the IPCC fourth assessment report published in 2007. Moreover the claim was extrapolated to include all glaciers in the Himalayas.

NewScientist

With a notable comment:

"This just goes to show what an influential publication publication New Scientist has become. Wouldn't it be funny if New Scientist completed the circle by quoting the IPPC report?"

More at the Times

[Cosmic Cowbell]

I don't have much respect for the video Cosmic posted however, which suggests that 'The Aliens don't care about humans, until we start hurting the green things, then they come over all concerned'. Well, ain't that very nice of them.

Somewhat an oversimplification of the events but I understand that are you probably totally unaware of the UFO/Nuclear connection. It isn't just hurting "green things".

UFO sightings at ICBM sites and nuclear Weapons Storage Areas By Robert L. Hastings

But we digress...

(thank you for honoring my request)

[Cosmic Cowbell]

More on Hydrogen Sulfide (H2S)...



People living along Namibia’s desert coast have long been familiar with the rotten egg smell that periodically emanates from the Atlantic Ocean. With an economy that is largely based on fishing, the locals are also used to seeing millions of fish die whenever the unpleasant scent fills the air. The smell and the fish die-off are caused by hydrogen sulfide erupting from decaying plants on the sea floor.

In the southeast Atlantic Ocean, strong ocean currents carry nutrient-rich deep-ocean water to the surface. The waters nourish free-floating microscopic plants, called phytoplankton, and other sea life. When the plants die, they sink to the ocean floor where bacteria begin to break them down. The oxygen is quickly used in the decay process, and anaerobic bacteria take over. These bacteria emit hydrogen sulfide gas as a by-product. The gas builds on the ocean floor until it erupts suddenly. When it reaches the surface, the hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water, allowing solid white sulfur to precipitate into the ocean. Of itself, hydrogen sulfide gas is toxic to fish, but this reaction with oxygen also creates deadly low-oxygen conditions in the ocean.

The reaction at the surface also makes hydrogen sulfide eruptions visible in satellite imagery. The white sulfur reflects light, tinting the water bright green along the Namibian coast. On May 12, 2004, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of a hydrogen sulfide eruption in progress. Along the coast, milky green sections of ocean show where hydrogen sulfide gas is coming up. Offshore, a phytoplankton bloom forms a bright green swirl in the ocean water, proof of the productivity that triggers the deadly eruptions.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=19276

[Wombaticus Rex]

You altered the equation. Captain Kirk would be proud of you...but you have to make choice.

Sorry, I thought the implication was clear that I would not push the button and assume we'd last longer than I was told. Even if it's aliens with Clarke tech, I refuse to be sold on a non-existent bill of goods, especially at gunpoint. (Plus I don't feel qualified to make the call on human extinction, we should probably all chat about that one first.)

And even if it was a certainty, 1000 years is a long time to figure out a lateral solution. I got faith in Teh Kids.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Sorry, I thought the implication was clear that I would not push the button and assume we'd last longer than I was told. Even if it's aliens with Clarke tech, I refuse to be sold on a non-existent bill of goods, especially at gunpoint. (Plus I don't feel qualified to make the call on human extinction, we should probably all chat about that one first.)

And even if it was a certainty, 1000 years is a long time to figure out a lateral solution. I got faith in Teh Kids.

Ok then.

Based upon the parameters of the exercise, your assumptions and faith notwithstanding, in 3010 all life on Planet Earth ceased to exist.

As consolation, it should be understood that in 250,000, in began to return. However, over the eons, it was insects rather than mammals that became sentient.

[Hammer of Los]

I knew comment by the mighty Wombat would be worth the wait.

I must say, I do understand exactly what you mean, and agree with you quite precisely.

Your input is valuable.

Oh, and Tazmic marvellous find from The Times! Well, well, it just goes to show. Good old mass media. Informational diversity, marvellous physiotherapy for my epistemology. It'll be up and running any day now. But that is one jaw dropping article;

The New Scientist report was apparently forgotten until 2005 when WWF cited it in a report called An Overview of Glaciers, Glacier Retreat, and Subsequent Impacts in Nepal, India and China. The report credited Hasnain's 1999 interview with the New Scientist. But it was a campaigning report rather than an academic paper so it was not subjected to any formal scientific review. Despite this it rapidly became a key source for the IPCC when Lal and his colleagues came to write the section on the Himalayas

WWF? Did someone mention the Club of Rome? So the IPCC is the mouthpiece for PR pieces from that lot? Well you know, that could explain a lot.

Busted.

Oh, here's another article about dodgy climate science predictions;

Climate change experts clash over sea-rise ‘apocalypse’ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 982299.ece

And some links people might find interesting;

http://www.consciousape.com/discussion- ... 1001-club/
http://www.consciousape.com/discussion- ... b-of-rome/
http://www.fpcn-global.org/content/More ... ograms_WWF

I am not endorsing the information in those links, and provide them only for entertainment purposes.

Just remember, the NWO are the good guys.

[DeltaDawn]

How I wish I had the capacity to post links, because I surely would have posted the one about the Club of Rome...my original point EXactly!!

Haven't figured out even quote stuff here, but "The NWO are the good guys" lol, yeah maybe? We know the 666 beast will come first, could the beginning actually be the one world government? Will it take a deadly wound that will enable the Beast to come with wonderous acts to heal it? Is it all inevitable, because 'it is written'?

Just asking like in the beginning, "How bad is global warming?". Is it that bad or is it the entrance for something much bigger, more important, and a way for we as 'the people' to accept it all?

Food for thought!