Global Warming

[ged]

I don't see CO2 as the deckchairs. I see it as the iceberg.

If you like, but we've already hit it according to Lovelock, thats the point

You're right, whether or not we have hit it (or will hit it) is hugely important. That's why I said "I fear". I fear Lovelock may be right, but what little optimism I have left tells me we might not have hit the iceberg quite yet, and we might still have a chance to avoid it if we could, just for a minute, stop all the music and dancing and go outside to take a look.

 

[andybysea]

Ged, but like others have said that would require all countries to stop right now and change all the fuel/ heating/energy sources they currently use,theres only one chance of that happening and thats NO CHANCE.

 

[No Idea]

Desserts, deserts....Sorry.

I dont actually remember where I heard it, but I have heard this many times referring to differing cities, places, etc, so I took it at face value. This is a link to the general story I heard. If you know where the later info is I would be interested.

 

[No Idea]

CO2....

Er....

So it wont cause global warming, which we actually seem to need, but it will kill all the fish and damage all our plantlife - which may ultimately kill us anyhow...

That sort of bothers me more than the threat of an iceberg as they all seem to be melting at the mo.

 

[No Idea]

This stuff all seems to be twisting up like knitting in my head.

 

[British Red]

You're right, whether or not we have hit it (or will hit it) is hugely important. That's why I said "I fear". I fear Lovelock may be right, but what little optimism I have left tells me we might not have hit the iceberg quite yet, and we might still have a chance to avoid it if we could, just for a minute, stop all the music and dancing and go outside to take a look.

Perhaps, but I can't see emerging nations being bound to a level below first world (or why they should be morally), nor can I see the first world dropping its consumption appreciably. I also think that ever expanding populations mean that, even if we can reduce per capita emissions, net emissions will continue to rise as no-one has a proposal let alone a concrete plan to tackle population growth. Wrap that up with the fact that fossil fuels WILL run out with all that that implies for an inflated population, then, I'm sorry to say, that the logical and pragmatic approach is to prepare for a different world rather than engage in Canut style disaster planning.

Red

 

[Robbi]

Robbi runs up to No Idea with a pair of knitting needles.....don't worry fella, we'll straighten it out for you !!

 

[ged]

CO2....

Er....

So it wont cause global warming...

Where did you get that idea from?

CO2 is like water vapour, it's one of the gases which does contribute to global warming.

 

[ged]

Robbi runs up to No Idea with a pair of knitting needles.....

Yeah, prod him with them, will ya?

 

[Robbi]

no no no no no !!!!!!!!! bad man !!

 

[ged]

....I can't see emerging nations being bound to a level below first world (or why they should be morally), nor can I see the first world dropping its consumption appreciably.

All strong points well made.

I also think that ever expanding populations mean that, even if we can reduce per capita emissions, net emissions will continue to rise

We're building coal fired power stations with CO2 capture. We're constantly improving the efficiencies of our buildings through better design and tighter regulations. We're installing better insulation and better heating technology. We're making more effort to use low-carbon power generation (although, heaven help us, in the UKAEA we were telling governments that we should be doing that thirty years ago -- I was one of the ones telling them when they quietly pulled the plug on the next generation of nuclear plant). No, it isn't enough.

But we can live with lower net consumption. Not so long ago I watched a WWII bomber built in under 24 hours. They were so far ahead of schedule when it was ready to fly they had to send somebody to wake up the pilot. Most people these days haven't had to dig deep and perform because of some terrible threat such as that faced by our nation in the early 1940s. I have confidence that when they see how serious things really are, people can and will put their shoulders to the wheel and that can really make a difference. The problem at the moment is that we have for the most part a bunch of glory seekers running the show, and they can't bear to think of cutting their own personal consumption and their self esteem, which is what will happen if we start to reduce the population. There will be a growing number of older people with a shrinking number of younger people, and that scares the accountants more than melting ice caps. It scares them because their pensions are effectively multiplied by the number of young people but divided by the number of old people. More old people and less young people means lower pensions. People don't like that. It might take something like a revolution to get where we need to be quickly enough.

no-one has a proposal let alone a concrete plan to tackle population growth

China has an effective policy. The rest of us do not, but it must come. There's no alternative except Malthusian catastrophe.

Wrap that up with the fact that fossil fuels WILL run out with all that that implies for an inflated population, then, I'm sorry to say, that the logical and pragmatic approach is to prepare for a different world rather than engage in Canut style disaster planning.

In another post you've mentioned fossil fuels running out in a few decades. When I was looking at this stuff thirty years ago, we had proven, economically recoverable fossil fuel reserves (mostly coal) of around 300 years. Since that time we've found a lot more and the escalating price of fuels means that much of what was not economically recoverable is now economically recoverable. I guess we might be using fuels at twice the rate we were then, but even so we're still looking at getting on for a couple of centuries at current consumption assuming a reasonable amount of new discoveries. It seems to me that if we use that all up it's enough to raise the global average temperature by four or five degrees. Yes, that would be a different world. Vast areas of the planet which are now home to billions of people would become uninhabitable. I'm not sure how you prepare for the sort of population movements which that would cause. There would certainly be global conflict. I can see no reason to sit on our hands and wait for it to happen.

 

[British Red]

Thats all conceivable - if we go for deeper drilling, shale oil extraction and even plastic to oil recovery. However all that does is extend the period of population growth and make for a deeper crash at the end.

I don't know where your statistics come from on China? The statistics I have read show population still expanding - half a billion increase over 40 years and a year on year increase every year

Source:

http://www.chinability.com/Population.htm

Given the lifecycle of CO2 in the atmosphere, even reduced emissions are almost certainly too much. I don't propose do nothing either, but I don't believe the world will line up to live much reduced lives - its an absurdly Eutopian suggestion that flies in the face of experience.

So what can we do? We can work on this country and manage its population and infrastructure to a post fossil fuel plan.

We can create plans the recognise that the World will not act in unity - so we must prepare to be a self sustaining country in the post oil world.

Red

 

[ged]

I don't know where your statistics come from on China? The statistics I have read show population still expanding - half a billion increase over 40 years and a year on year increase every year

Yes, their population is still increasing. But they have a policy in place which plans to stabilize it by about 2050:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/10/china.onechild/index.html

 

[British Red]

Our definitions of "effective policy" clearly differ. Something that hasn't worked yet and may never work has hardly been proven "effective" in my book

 

[pastymuncher]

Are you talking about the China that was in 2007 building 2 coal fired powers station a week and is still building them at about 1 a month now, to feed our insatiable need for cheap tat the we deem necessary in our lives.

 

[ged]

Our definitions of "effective policy" clearly differ. Something that hasn't worked yet and may never work has hardly been proven "effective" in my book

Well, yes, I have heard that the policy can be less effective if you can afford the right bribes (sigh).

But they are at least tackling the problem. Nobody over here will even talk about it. When I wrote to the incoming Prime Minister to ask him what he was going to do about the ever growing population problem his response was to get Cherie pregnant again (- ah, yes, that incoming Prime Minister). He never even replied to my letter.

Are you talking about the China that was in 2007 building 2 coal fired powers station a week and is still building them at about 1 a month now, to feed our insatiable need for cheap tat the we deem necessary in our lives.

Yes, that's the one. As I keep saying, we all need to change our ways.

 

[British Red]

Aaah but theres the rub. Wishing and hoping that people will change there ways in the face of all evidence, historical and contemporary, is naive at best and Canutism at worst. The actions that any government needs to take to fix these problems would render them unelectable. At which point its far more sensible rather than trying to hold back the tide, to use the remaining time before the tide comes in to build a boat or move to higher ground.

 

[Wayland]

Snip> rather than engage in Canut style disaster planning. <Snip

Snip>is naive at best and Canutism at worst. <Snip

Hey, leave Knut out of this.

Knut is often translated as Canute and in the popular story is seen as the foolish King who told the sea not to come in and got his feet wet.

In reality Knut was one of the first Christian Kings of the Vikings, and ruler of England, Denmark, Norway and Sweden by 1030 CE. The story goes that Knut was so fed up with his courtiers, who thought there was nothing beyond the King&#8217;s power, that he did indeed go to the beach and order the tide to stop. When the sea rose and soaked the feet of the king and his courtiers, he then explained that there was a king more powerful than him, and that was the King of Heaven.

This story above is another good example of how stories get misquoted, confused and misunderstood with the passage of time.

 

[British Red]

An illstrative point only Wayland. Whether Canute tried to hold back the tide

1)As an act of arrogance
2)To illustrate a point
3)Only in fable

Its a useful allegory for attempting something that is doomed to failure.

I might have had more time for him if he did it to illustrate the gravitational attaraction of a large satellite on a body of water though

 

[No Idea]

Lol not sure Ive ever been attacked with knitting needles before.


Someone said earlier that the temperature of the earth is currently exactly the average its been for the last 3,000 years, so I take it that increasing the amount of CO2 like we have in the last few decades must have been a good thing as its seems to have helped keep it constant.

They also said that if we dont have all these greenhouse gasses, the temperature on this planet will drop some 33 degrees. I wouldnt be very happy about that, so we obviously need to keep up the emmisions.

However, someone else said that the CO2 is also damaging our plants and fish, so maybe we need more water vapour to go with the CO2.

Or Have I missed something again?