I'm not a prepper...but my son will be...

[Hibrion]

'As with most subjects, ignorance is more prevalent than knowledge when it comes to this. Part of the problem is most people don't understand the most basic terminology on the subject. Climate change is a natural process that has been ongoing on our planet since its creation. It can be, and has been, documented and studied in extreme depth. Because scientists know what has happened over the past millennia they can say with as much confidence that science allows that the activities of mankind are having an impact on how our climate is changing.

There are virtually no credible scientists or academics on the planet who believe mankind has not had a serious impact on natural climate change.

Having said that, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But opinions are just that, one persons opinion. Your opinion doesn't require qualifications, it doesn't require proof or scientific methodology, and it isn't peer reviewed. So you'll forgive me if I don't value your opinion more than the academic books and papers I've read (and understood) on the subject. There will always be ignorant individuals who form an opinion on a subject absent of knowledge in the area, they are best ignored.

One thing that you cannot argue with, regardless of what your opinion is, is that the actions needed to combat man made climate change can only result in a better world for future generations. If, by some incredible miracle, the entire scientific community has got it wrong about man made climate change, the worst that can happen is that we have made the world a healthier, better place for our children for no reason. I for one am quite happy to take that risk.

 

[Rich D]

Oh come off it climate change is happening, all the evidence apart from a few crackpots points to it. Also all the evidence points to it being linked to our influence on the planet. There's a majority of experts who show that the evidence points to man made climate change, and that's what science is about a majority acceptance based on the facts available. What's hard to predict is the outcome from this, will we get warmer in the UK? Maybe, but if global warming melts significant amounts of Artic icecaps then that might switch off the mechanism of the North Atlantic Drift, leading us to be colder.
I've seen the biggest differences in the mountains in areas like the Pyrenees where the glaciers weren't the huge ice rivers of the alps, there's a been a large and noticeable retreat over the last 22 years - that's because it's getting hotter, irrespective of what the weather was like last year, this year or last week Tuesday at 2pm. I always think “Climate trains the boxer but weather throws the punches”, that way when the Daily Mail headlines say it's been the coldest/snowiest/hottest month "now it's climate cooling" etc it's put into context.

Gaia earth theories talk about a stabilisation, as a natural process, however that stabilisation could be millennium away and may not include us in it. And in the short term it could get very messy and nasty for our kids and grand kids.
and as Hibrion says "One thing that you cannot argue with, regardless of what your opinion is, is that the actions needed to combat man made climate change can only result in a better world for future generations. If, by some incredible miracle, the entire scientific community has got it wrong about man made climate change, the worst that can happen is that we have made the world a healthier, better place for our children for no reason. I for one am quite happy to take that risk"

 

[HillBill]

As i said. There are scientists for and against both theories. Just because one person is disagreeing with another, does not mean it can't be true. Most of it is "in theory" anyway. If they could prove it, then there would be no one able to disagree with it would there?

then you didn't read it. The National geographic article has people saying that the melting of the mars 'ice' caps is due to wobble on it's axis, not warming.

 

[Adze]

Gaia earth theories talk about a stabilisation, as a natural process, however that stabilisation could be millennium away and may not include us in it. And in the short term it could get very messy and nasty for our kids and grand kids.

Short term stabilization perhaps, long term it would seem glaciation and melting are becoming progressively more extreme. This could, of course, all be part of a much longer period harmonic, but there's a really neat graphic of data from sediment core samples here:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.svg

Full article is this one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

Yes I know it's thickipaedia, but we're chatting on a Bushcraft forum not submitting theses for our degrees.

 

[Rich D]

Good links, my favourite bit about the climate is that as there is ice at both poles we are officially in an iceage. Not many mammoths in Nottingham this morning...

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Ah goody. Anthropomorphic climate change. Is it or is it not real. The good ole debate.

Now, at this point, I am going to be open and declare a few things. Firstly: I am not a professional climate scientist, just a geek behind a keyboard somewhere in Europe. Secondly: I actually studied this for my Masters in Environmental Science.

My research was basic, it was only a few thousand words for a small project in the first module of the masters. I took the data from the vostok ice cores, along with climatic data from a number of other sources and plotted them all up pretty graphs, and looked at what I had.

Short version: It's getting warmer. Of this there was no denying. The scientific evidence is clear, sea levels are rising, ice caps are melting, glaciers are melting, and average global temperatures are higher now than any point in the last few tens of thousands of years. That bit is clear.

The question however comes down to this. Is it our fault?

The earth has experienced temperatures higher than we have now on a number of occasions, it operates in a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years, swinging between ice age, and warmer periods. Technically we are still in an ice age, as there is still permanent ice in Antarctica. But when you plot the temperatures on the graph. Something is wrong. We aren't due to be at this temperature yet, we're early. And when you zoom in, it gets even scarier. Plot average global temperature against time for the last 300 years. You can almost identify each of the main industrial leaps forward. The steam engine, the locomotive, the car. Each one marks an increase in the global temperature. Now, you could argue that correlation does not equal causation. That is a fair argument to make. But, if you combine everything, increases in atmospheric CO2, increases in temperature, increases in world industrialisation, then the evidence becomes pretty compelling. It's our fault, we're doing something wrong.

Now, in the field of theology there is something called pascals wager. You can apply this to global warming.

Option a: Global warming is our fault.

Option b: Global warming is not our fault.

If we decide to do something about it, reduce our C02 emissions, and generally clean up our act, and option a is true. Then we may well save our planet. If we do this and option b is true. What have we lost?

Conversely, if we do nothing, and option a is true, we're screwed.

This brings me onto my final point. The people talking about climate change and global warming aren't people who will get massive amounts of benefit from being right. They are scientists, and the scientific method is all about what the evidence supports. Which gives you the following quote:

"Plot idea: 97% of the world's scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies."

Ultimately you pays your money, you takes your choice. We could all be wrong. But the scarier prospect is that we could all be right.

Thanks

Julia

 

[santaman2000]

......and as Hibrion says "One thing that you cannot argue with, regardless of what your opinion is, is that the actions needed to combat man made climate change can only result in a better world for future generations....

Not necessarily. One university course I recall taught that each every step we take to eliminate one problem bring newer unexpected problems of its own. Throughout history, every "improvement" we've made has resulted in some negative impact of its own:

-We discovered fire and it improved our lives by keeping us from freezing, keeping predators away, and killing harmful bacteria (cooking our food)
--Downside? Burning to death, Smoke inhalation

-Mass producing automobiles? Would you believe they originally reduced pollution!? Yep. No more horse manure all over the streets. Quick transportation (including life saving ambulances and delivery of meds, etc.)
--Downside? Deaths from auto accidents, carbon based pollution, vast areas paved for roadways & parking, etc.

Possibly anything we do to reduce climate change (yes, it's too late to stop or reverse it) but it will certainly only delay that problem by trading it for something as yet to be known.

 

[santaman2000]

Good links, my favourite bit about the climate is that as there is ice at both poles we are officially in an iceage. Not many mammoths in Nottingham this morning...

Yep. The peak of the last (or if you prefer, current) ice age was 10,000 years ago. The next is predicted to be 15,000 years in the future. Those numbers would suggest that we're still in the warming part of the natural cycle even before you consider any man made interference.

 

[redneck]

If the earth was getting hotter due to gases released by man, then why don't those gases all escape through the hole in the ozone layer!! ( remember that one boys and girls?)

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Not necessarily. One university course I recall taught that each every step we take to eliminate one problem bring newer unexpected problems of its own. Throughout history, every "improvement" we've made has resulted in some negative impact of its own:

-We discovered fire and it improved our lives by keeping us from freezing, keeping predators away, and killing harmful bacteria (cooking our food)
--Downside? Burning to death, Smoke inhalation

-Mass producing automobiles? Would you believe they originally reduced pollution!? Yep. No more horse manure all over the streets. Quick transportation (including life saving ambulances and delivery of meds, etc.)
--Downside? Deaths from auto accidents, carbon based pollution, vast areas paved for roadways & parking, etc.

Possibly anything we do to reduce climate change (yes, it's too late to stop or reverse it) but it will certainly only delay that problem by trading it for something as yet to be known.

Revenge effects is the term you are looking for.

However I believe your examples are poorly chosen.

1) Fire. Without fire we would not have developed the Brains that we have now. Your brain is an amazingly hungry organ, requiring relatively obscene amounts of calories to keep it alive. If you were to eat nothing but raw unprocessed food, as much as you can eat, veg, fruit, grains, meat. If you can eat it unprocessed and uncooked, eat it. Within 3 months you will starve to death. You simply cannot get enough calories into your body without resorting to cooking. In the words of one scientist "We developed an external stomach, called a frying pan"

2) The car. That reduced pollution you mention was catastrophic in some regards. Yes there was horse poo on the streets. But it wasn't there for long. It was scooped up, and taken out and put on the fields as fertiliser. The move to the auto mobile meant that we had to find alternative sources of fertiliser such as the Haber process in order to keep our food sources. It's one of the big flaws in the vegan argument. If you take the livestock out of a farm, you lose your fertiliser source.

Yes there is the possibility of a revenge effect from any action we take to reduce the impact of climate change. But what is the effect if we do nothing? Risk of certainty vs certainty of risk...

Julia

 

[Quixoticgeek]

If the earth was getting hotter due to gases released by man, then why don't those gases all escape through the hole in the ozone layer!! ( remember that one boys and girls?)

Do you *REALLY* want us to honour that with a reply?

Yes I do remember the Ozone layer. I remember when the research came out from the British Antarctic Survey. I remember the skeptics and the proponents. Then I remember how important it was that fridges and deoderant become chlorofluorocarbon free.

And you know what? the scientists were right. We got rid of the CFC's, and since 1989 when they were banned, the hole has got smaller and smaller.

But, to answer your original question. The hole in the ozone layer isn't like a hole in the side of a water tank and with the hole there all the water gushes out (water tank == earths atmosphere, water == co2 in this analogy). With the exception of Helium and Hydrogen. Our gravity and magnetosphere holds our atmosphere in place. If the CO2 simply escaped through the ozone hole that would be great. But the reality is that the laws of physics say no. The C02 hangs in the upper atmosphere as a layer creating the greenhouse effect.

Julia

 

[mrcharly]

Nicely put, Julia.

 

[santaman2000]

Revenge effects is the term you are looking for.

However I believe your examples are poorly chosen.

1) Fire. Without fire we would not have developed the Brains that we have now. Your brain is an amazingly hungry organ, requiring relatively obscene amounts of calories to keep it alive. If you were to eat nothing but raw unprocessed food, as much as you can eat, veg, fruit, grains, meat. If you can eat it unprocessed and uncooked, eat it. Within 3 months you will starve to death. You simply cannot get enough calories into your body without resorting to cooking. In the words of one scientist "We developed an external stomach, called a frying pan"

2) The car. That reduced pollution you mention was catastrophic in some regards. Yes there was horse poo on the streets. But it wasn't there for long. It was scooped up, and taken out and put on the fields as fertiliser. The move to the auto mobile meant that we had to find alternative sources of fertiliser such as the Haber process in order to keep our food sources. It's one of the big flaws in the vegan argument. If you take the livestock out of a farm, you lose your fertiliser source.

Yes there is the possibility of a revenge effect from any action we take to reduce the impact of climate change. But what is the effect if we do nothing? Risk of certainty vs certainty of risk...

Julia

1. My examples are two of the ones used in the class.

2. No. Manure in larger cities rarely got scooped up and spread on fields as fertilizer at the time for at least two reasons:
a. Since transportation was still horse based, it would have been expensive to transport it that far. Instead it was dumped into the nearest street drains to pollute nearby streams
b. Horse manure is a poor fertilizer; chicken manure is the most preferred and cow is second after that.


Moving to "alternative fertilizers" wasn't due to deliberate research but was due to an accidental discovery (the vegetation near railways was much lusher after the nitrates used in explosives spilled over the sides of the railway cars in WWII)

 

[mrcharly]

1. My examples are two of the ones used in the class.

2. No. Manure in larger cities rarely got scooped up and spread on fields as fertilizer at the time for at least two reasons:
a. Since transportation was still horse based, it would have been expensive to transport it that far. Instead it was dumped into the nearest street drains to pollute nearby streams)

Not in the UK, Santaman. It was very definitely gathered and used!

 

[santaman2000]

Not in the UK, Santaman. It was very definitely gathered and used!

Possibly so in the UK although having experience as a farmer I can't imagine why; it is indeed a very poor fertilizer and would have been expensive to transport by wagons form large cities to rural areas.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

1. My examples are two of the ones used in the class.

2. No. Manure in larger cities rarely got scooped up and spread on fields as fertilizer at the time for at least two reasons:
a. Since transportation was still horse based, it would have been expensive to transport it that far. Instead it was dumped into the nearest street drains to pollute nearby streams
b. Horse manure is a poor fertilizer; chicken manure is the most preferred and cow is second after that.

Not quite London was surrounded by market gardens that were fed by this supply of poo. While Horse manure is not the best, given it is essentially free (just the travel costs), it is better than nothing.

Moving to "alternative fertilizers" wasn't deliberate but was due to an accidental discovery (the vegetation near railways was much lusher after the nitrates used in explosives spilled over the sides of the railway cars in WWII)

Erm, I was under the understanding that it was the result of the exhaustion in the supply of guarno that really drove it. The Haber process that allowed for synthetic fertilizers was discovered in 1909...

Julia

 

[santaman2000]

.....Erm, I was under the understanding that it was the result of the exhaustion in the supply of guarno that really drove it. The Haber process that allowed for synthetic fertilizers was discovered in 1909...

Julia

Not what I was taught. But TBH, much of what I was taught may be in conflict with current teachings. However, it's a certainty that widespread use of synthetics didn't come about until after WWII. Also to my knowledge (I come from a farming family) nobody here ever used guano anyway so it would never have needed a replacement. to be perfectly honest, few people used any fertilizers at all in the south and Midwest prior to large scale industrial farming. Usually they were reserved for the small personal kitchen gardens and ornamental beds.

I suppose it's possible (maybe even likely) that the discovery near the railways re-ignited interest in previous research that had been set aside?

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Not what I was taught. But TBH, much of what I was taught may be in conflict with current teachings. However, it's a certainty that widespread use of synthetics didn't come about until after WWII. Also to my knowledge (I come from a farming family) nobody here ever used guano anyway so it would never have needed a replacement.

I suppose it's possible (maybe even likely) that the discovery near the railways re-ignited interest in previous research that had been set aside?

I think this may be a case of different cultures. In the UK, guano was used extensively. During WWII we used artificial fertilizers on our fields.

Julia

 

[redneck]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-science-environment-ozone-hole-25-years/

According to national geographic, plugging the hole could have had an effect on 'global warming'.. Just what was mentioned before about one cause having an effect

 

[santaman2000]

I think this may be a case of different cultures. In the UK, guano was used extensively. During WWII we used artificial fertilizers on our fields.

Julia

During WWII? Seems unlikely. Not because I doubt that they may have been discovered; but rather because all nitrate production during the war would have gone to munitions.

However, I can see the culture thing influencing the cost of transporting the manure. As I remember my time in England, the rural areas weren't so far from the urban ones. Mega cities exempted from that generalization of course.