Scientific Report: rock solid evidence for human-caused G.W.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Why are you cynical and morbid? That's kind of a repulsive worldview/attitude. Eagerly awaiting laughing at people as the biosphere and much of recognizable civilization implodes?

[kheegster]

Why are you cynical and morbid? That's kind of a repulsive worldview/attitude. Eagerly awaiting laughing at people as the biosphere and much of recognizable civilization implodes?

Possibly because if it does get to that stage, there isn't much we can do except to seek retribution against those responsible?

[Bounty]

Here is another counter to the published report that was posted on a swedish forum I visit:
http://www.johannorberg.net/?page=displ ... =2007#2140

As for myself I've decided to take no side in the G.W. debate, I've decided to just wait it out and see what happens. I'll buy guns and ammo in the meanwhile and prepare for the worst...

FYI, you can't shoot global warming. That's like saying you're going to stock up on tuna in case a meteor might hit.

I'm watching An Inconvenient Truth right now, and I find it quite exciting to know that my generation will likely be the one to see humanity's final days.

I don't know about final days, but yes, ours will the the generation that decides just how bad the climate will get.

But I'm not as pessimistic as you. There are people - politicians, even - who realise the current policies are failing and who do take measures to stabilise the biosphere. It's just that there seems to be a black hole of stupidity around the US that keeps holding them back.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Why are you cynical and morbid? That's kind of a repulsive worldview/attitude. Eagerly awaiting laughing at people as the biosphere and much of recognizable civilization implodes?

Yes, far more fun to pretend the plane isn't on fire and crashing into the sea. Ignorance is, as they say, bliss. Not at all the same mentality that got us into this mess in the first place.

Or, you can forgive me for entertaining the fact that I may be one of the few people ever to live to see the end of humanity, at least as a major species, if not outright. How many historical figures can say that, eh?

And you assume humanity doesn't deserve it, which is also patently false.

It's equally amusing how the world's greatest military technology is totally redundant against this threat, but then, against terrorism it is too. So I guess that's nowt new.

[kheegster]

I don't really think the climate change is going to be a civilisation-ending phenomenon. It will cause fuckloads of ecological and meteorological disasters ranging from crop failures to hurricanes, and cause huge amounts of death, misery and human displacement.

But I don't think it'll wipe out civilisation. I think at worst it'll throw us into a new Dark Ages where there is little technological or scientific advancement, and nation-states fall back into constant conflict for scarce resources.

Just feel lucky you're one of the richest countries in the world, and not poor Bangladeshi schmuck whose country is going to be washed away.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't really think the climate change is going to be a civilisation-ending phenomenon. It will cause fuckloads of ecological and meteorological disasters ranging from crop failures to hurricanes, and cause huge amounts of death, misery and human displacement.

But I don't think it'll wipe out civilisation. I think at worst it'll throw us into a new Dark Ages where there is little technological or scientific advancement, and nation-states fall back into constant conflict for scarce resources.

Just feel lucky you're one of the richest countries in the world, and not poor Bangladeshi schmuck whose country is going to be washed away.

You don't think a 6 degree increase, which is enough to make all major life not living at the poles deceased, will be a major drag? I'd call that a wee bit more than the flooding of coastal areas and displacing of several million people. That, my friend, is merely the opening act.

And Dark Ages is pretty nice. See, in the Dark Ages, we didn't have to contend with ANY of the predicted events transpiring now. In the Dark Ages, humans still had habitable places where they'd been since the last ice age ten-millennia ago.

There is nothing in human history that this compares to. Nothing. This is not a minor annoyance that we will overcome with our human determination. This is the same scale of event that wiped out all life on Earth before, and is being accelerated and exacerbated by human industry.

I would consider us reverting back to 13th century life as pretty fucking lenient.

[His Divine Shadow]

FYI, you can't shoot global warming. That's like-

FYI I'm not going to be shooting global warming, I'm going to be shooting the raving bands of bandits and rapegangs in my part of the forrest as civilization collapses into a bad Mad Max parody.

And stocking up on tuna incase a meteor hits is viable because if I survive the initial impact then I'll have food so I can live a little bit longer. Oh and omega-3.

[Admiral Valdemar]

FYI I'm not going to be shooting global warming, I'm going to be shooting the raving bands of bandits and rapegangs in my part of the forrest as civilization collapses into a bad Mad Max parody.

And stocking up on tuna incase a meteor hits is viable because if I survive the initial impact then I'll have food so I can live a little bit longer. Oh and omega-3.

Find a good highland bunker and stick to it. Most of the north will be either under water, or in balmy weather that makes the Med today look tepid. The UK will become quite valuable real estate too, given it'll be somewhat nice to live here while the likes of south Spain and Italy will be routinely over 40 degrees, arid desert as the Sahara crosses over the Med (and increases eating into Africa, which is what is fuelling the Darfur and Niger problems now).

[kheegster]

You don't think a 6 degree increase, which is enough to make all major life not living at the poles deceased, will be a major drag? I'd call that a wee bit more than the flooding of coastal areas and displacing of several million people. That, my friend, is merely the opening act.

And Dark Ages is pretty nice. See, in the Dark Ages, we didn't have to contend with ANY of the predicted events transpiring now. In the Dark Ages, humans still had habitable places where they'd been since the last ice age ten-millennia ago.

There is nothing in human history that this compares to. Nothing. This is not a minor annoyance that we will overcome with our human determination. This is the same scale of event that wiped out all life on Earth before, and is being accelerated and exacerbated by human industry.

I would consider us reverting back to 13th century life as pretty fucking lenient.

Mate, a 6 degree increase is the possible upper limit. The probable upper limit is 4 degrees, which is still a bitch, but you're making it sound dead certain that there is going to be a 6 degree hike.

[His Divine Shadow]

I'm not sure but I've had the impression that finland would actually be in a pretty good location to cope with rising sea levels and the increased warmth here would possibly make the climate more like southern france.

[His Divine Shadow]

Hey, is there some kind of simulator out there that could show which areas are covered in water when the sea level increases by a certain amount?

[Enforcer Talen]

http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=43.3251,- ... 5&z=13&m=7

Google is your friend.

For myself, I think we're going to dodge this bullet; ie, still have a species and civilization afterwards.

Beyond that, I make no bets.

[His Divine Shadow]

Thanks, I also found this, images simulating a 100-meter rise of sea levels for europe and the world, but more detailed ones for the US (1,3,10,30,100 meters):
http://resumbrae.com/archive/warming/index.html

[Admiral Valdemar]

Mate, a 6 degree increase is the possible upper limit. The probable upper limit is 4 degrees, which is still a bitch, but you're making it sound dead certain that there is going to be a 6 degree hike.

All of which is based on rather unpredictable events that only under a decade ago, would not have produced even that 4 degree upper limit. They added the 6 degree as a probable, but we've already gone over this absurd conservative erring in SLAM.

Even the 4 degree prediction is enough to end modern civilisation as we see it, doubly so with geometric increases in population and equivalent consumption of resources. In a report in another decade, this could be seen as hopefully optimistic given the rates of acceleration seen. No one thought the Larsen B ice shelf would go anytime this century, yet it did so overnight not long after concern was raised.

[His Divine Shadow]

This one worked better for me by the way than the google map thingy which didn't seem to work on scandinavia:
http://merkel.zoneo.net/Topo/Applet

Seems even wth a 6meter increase that we are quite safe in Finland. Åland might be another matter though.

[Loner]

From the looks of it in both maps, the west coast won't get it as bad as the east and gulf coasts. Looks like L.A. only gets some flooding. I was figuring all three coast states would be submerged.

[Shinova]

My question is how did a lake come up in the middle of California?


Might make some prime real estate on the bright side.

[Shinova]

And a good chunk of china is completely underwater.

Although even if they did take a look at this map they'll still be concerned more with their growth and international reputation.

[Shinova]

This would also mean that LA might take over NY's position as the most important city in the world.

[Loner]

My question is how did a lake come up in the middle of California?


Might make some prime real estate on the bright side.

Up from the San Fran bay. Looks like Silicon Valley will be gone. Mother Russia gets a hit too.

[Rye]

Why are you cynical and morbid? That's kind of a repulsive worldview/attitude. Eagerly awaiting laughing at people as the biosphere and much of recognizable civilization implodes?

It seems unavoidable and vast swathes of people deserve it, if not all of us. What you call cynicism and morbidity, I would call making the best of an unpleasant situation. Plus it will look really cool.

None of us really want to give up what we have, consciously or unconsciously, we've all made our beds and will have to lie in them. Our lives are unsustainable and there are periodic mass extinctions. It was only ever a matter of time.

[Admiral Valdemar]

My only regret is this will send the fundies into overdrive as they pedal the whole "end of days" bullshit and how we've done God's work in using up the planet's resources so we can move on.

On the other hand, it'd show people that what we know, all that has ever transpired by humanity, is merely a blink in the universal timeline. It would, if anything, show how humbling it is to simply be a freak event on an otherwise uninteresting planet. You often see sci-fi talk of humans in the future, exploring space, meeting aliens and having wacky adventures. What if it all ends within this century? Nothing like that. It'd be closer to Children of Men or End of Evangelion than anything else.

I guess people just don't grasp that nothing lasts forever and that we're not exactly ancient ourselves, and already we're looking at something like this now.

Oh yeah, two major stories in the news today. Mass flooding in Jakarta, killing many and displacing even more, and bird flu in the UK, a disease that is one of many now emerging in modern times.

[Rye]

I find a good way of explaining the cataclysmic nihilistic/misanthropic mindset regarding the extinction of the human race would be to think of a load of muslim fundamentalists burning effigies of fattened westerners, Fred Phelps protests the funeral of a gay man, the KKK lynch some black people, blacks raping children to get rid of their HIV in Africa, and that "king of chavs" guy that won the lottery as soon as he got out of prison for assault or whatever, flaunting the fact he is likely always going to be more rich than you. Now think of them all just gone, the mosques or streets or wherever they are are now just silent, baking, or underwater, or covered in vegetation. Humanists would say it was a worse scene, I personally wouldn't.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I'm watching An Inconvenient Truth right now, and I find it quite exciting to know that my generation will likely be the one to see humanity's final days. I don't see humans ever taking this seriously, what with those damn sceptic idiots out there with their short sightedness and profit margins to worry about.

Would you believe that I also saw "An Inconvenient Truth" Last night at the exact same time that you did (With time differences taken into account) .

Frankly the situation annoys me at the futility of it, its gone so far that we can't stop it, Barring a radical breakthrough along the lines of the proposed orbital giant "solar" mirrors or clean fallout nukes, and that it will get worse.
At least we won't push it as hard once the oil dies out (which will happen soon, what with China & India's billowing populations), but its simply impossible for me to grasp that changes on the scale that we are talking about will happen within 50-70 years, during my life-time.
"Sigh", in the words of the good agent Smith "Humans are a disease", we strip & consume, and perhaps it's for the best that we've wasted our resources on fighting each other to the point where we won't have time to escape into space or set up extra-terrestrial self sustaining colonies.
On the other hand, moving back to the UK has a certain added appeal (as does working as a physicist in NASA)

[Guardsman Bass]

Even assuming the absolute worst rise in temperature, and the complete melting of the polar ice, I still have my doubts about whether this would wipe out humanity. We've lived through a evolutionary bottleneck and Ice Ages before, and that was when we were hunter-gatherers with essentially no way to either plan long-term on a large scale to deal with gathering problems. And the world has seen temperatures significantly higher than now before; both the early Cretaceous Period and late Paleocene/Early Eocene had an average world temperature around 25 degrees Celsius, if I remember (ten higher than now) right, with significantly higher sea levels than normal.

Which is not to say that things will be pleasant in the new world. Assuming the worst-case scenario climatewise, you could end up with a number of very authoritarian governments (although a "help" might arrive in the fact that disease and starvation would almost certainly reduce humanity's numbers.

I think you're being far too pessimistic, Valdemar.