Climate Change Worse Than We Predicted, Says New Report

[kanetsb]

The cool thing about this Global Warming, is that my country's farming output is expected to increase by a 100% due to the increase in median yearly temperatures. However... the countries south to mine will see a large decline...

Cha-ching!

Better yet, we're not responsible for the warming as our carbon production is not that high.

Thanks America and China - keep the fossil flame burning strong!

where you from?

Poland...

This is an older graph from 2007 -

I've seen a newer one which rated the increase at 75-100% but can't find it. This one's at around 30% but the projected temp increase was lower back then.

Again, I am being cynical there of course but hey - it's not us who will get screwed by this. /cheers

 

[Rabid_meese]

I seriously don't get why people are opposed to fighting global warming.

Lets say you're believe that hardest core, shit-kickingest models that the Earth isn't heating up. You're one of those Drudge Reporters who say it "Global Warming can't exist because we had a polar vortex." You don't understand how hot and cold air interacts, but fine. You believe that.

What do you have to lose by swapping your economy from fossil fuel based to cleaner, more efficient models? Nuclear power is statistically way cheaper and way safer then fossil fuels. Contrary to popular belief, you can't get a nuclear explosion from a power plant - the compounds are no where near enriched enough. I'm no expert, but I believe reactors have gotten a lot safer since then - Fukishima wasn't that bad, and that was a reactor that was built on a fault line in an Earthquake/Tsunami prone portion of the world.

Solar and Wind power are fantastic. You're using nature to power things. Not only do you open up jobs in building and installing these, but you open up entire markets for selling and developing these. Investing in newer forms of energy is literally a newer market with tons of economic opportunities.

Not to mention - even if you don't believe in global warming, you can't deny that burning fossil fuels isn't clean. Its still harmful to the environment, and the consolidation of oil powers across the world has basically sowed an international cartel that's only motive is to screw you out of as much money as possible. Want efficient cars? Fuck you, enjoy your 20MPG. OH, you'll make an electric car? Yeah, good luck when we shut down all of your plants due to congressional buyoffs. Whats that, you want another price raise? YOU GOT IT.

We have a monopoly on power. Monopolies are bad. If you invest in new forms of energy, you get cheaper prices, more jobs, less crime, and a cleaner environment. EVEN IF the globe isn't heating up, those are some pretty good outputs.

And, if you're wrong? Well, we've cataclysmicly destroyed the environment, forcing humanity to limp gimped into the 22nd century compounded by issues of mass starvation, famine, poverty and war. That's a pretty heavy debt stacked against you.

 

[AnarchistFish]

The cool thing about this Global Warming, is that my country's farming output is expected to increase by a 100% due to the increase in median yearly temperatures. However... the countries south to mine will see a large decline...

Cha-ching!

Better yet, we're not responsible for the warming as our carbon production is not that high.

Thanks America and China - keep the fossil flame burning strong!

where you from?

Poland...

This is an older graph from 2007 -

I've seen a newer one which rated the increase at 75-100% but can't find it. This one's at around 30% but the projected temp increase was lower back then.

Again, I am being cynical there of course but hey - it's not us who will get screwed by this. /cheers

you will be eventually


funny how the countries that will benefit are generally more advanced industrial or service based economies and many of those that will suffer currently rely on agriculture..

 

[erbkaiser]

This is all bullshit. What this whole crap is is a group of "scientists" who have just over a century of data at most*, and are extrapolating it into absurd values for the future, ignoring the fact that there have been massive temperature fluxuations over the past centuries. Perhaps we are simply getting OUT of a COLD period.

Historical examples:
Between AD 1550 and 1850 the median temperatures were much lower than, say, in the 1950s, but nobody was whining about global warming then.

And between AD 800 and 1200 temperatures across Europe were even higher on average than they are now. So who's to say that we're not simply moving back to more normal temperatures after a lull that started ~1550 and only ended ~1850?


*weather stations only started around AD 1900 in the Western world so we have no reliable data from prior to that, and for some African and Asian areas most measurements only started around the 1950s. That's why I scoff at the "worst weather ever", "warmest July in history" crap -- at best we can say "since measurements began".

 

[Atmos Duality]

No they will then be forced to do what they should have 30 years ago and start building desalination plants and get water from the ocean rather than roll the dice every year and hope for a good snowpack in the mountains to fill up the lakes. The water can then be pumped back to the lakes on draught years to ensure farmers have enough water for crops and can also be pumped to good farmland that's not close enough to a water source to make a viable farm. Cities have plenty of water and farmers wont need to worry about droughts but it costs money that everyone's afraid to spend even though it would be a huge benefit in creating jobs, helping the environment by not draining rivers every year, and allow for more food production that's not dependent on rainfall.

Desalinization Plants wouldn't help.

1) Most US Agriculture that needs water the most is over 1000 miles from an ocean.
2) Desalinization is extremely cost prohibitive because of the energy required (just boiling water takes a large amount of energy because water has excellent thermal capacity).

This is all bullshit. What this whole crap is is a group of "scientists" who have just over a century of data at most*, and are extrapolating it into absurd values for the future, ignoring the fact that there have been massive temperature fluxuations over the past centuries. Perhaps we are simply getting OUT of a COLD period.

Historical examples:
Between AD 1550 and 1850 the median temperatures were much lower than, say, in the 1950s, but nobody was whining about global warming then.

And between AD 800 and 1200 temperatures across Europe were even higher on average than they are now. So who's to say that we're not simply moving back to more normal temperatures after a lull that started ~1550 and only ended ~1850?

Aye.
The problem with trying to study and explain climate change is that we're looking for the empirical effects of something (rising oceans and melting glaciers is one such effect; and it's easily measured at that) while knowing only some of the specific triggers.

We know how greenhouse gases work.
But we don't know all the specific triggers and finding them is hard just because of how enormous and complicated the global atmosphere is.

On the other hand, I can safely assert that the game has changed considerably since the middle ages; we weren't producing greenhouse gases nonstop at a growing non-stop rate back then, and we had a lot more plant life back then.
(not to sound like a tree hugger, but plants are essential; they absorb greenhouse gases and more incoming sunlight than open ground)

 

[Something Amyss]

It's never worse than expected. The nuts in the '90s were saying by 2014 we'd all be underwater. Then Al Gore had us underwater by 2050, this report pushes it to 2100.

You're comparing outliers to actual scientists and peer-reviewed studies, though. Let's be honest: when the grown-ups are talking, it can be worse than expected. The discourse is not dictated solely by some alarmists on the left and Fox News on the right.

It's the same doomsday shit every time. We'll probably kill ourselves off some other way before our affecting the climate gets us. Even then, once we're gone, everything goes back to normal and the Earth gives no fucks.

Of course, climate change is already killing us, so that's absurd. But more to the point, we're not doing this because we think the earth cares. So what if the earth doesn't care?

I seriously don't get why people are opposed to fighting global warming.

Inaction beats actin, frankly. If Global Warming is true, we have to do stuff. Better to make excuses and deride it.

This is all bullshit. What this whole crap is is a group of "scientists" who have just over a century of data at most*[....] And between AD 800 and 1200 temperatures across Europe were even higher on average than they are now.

Wot.

You criticise climate scientists for insufficient data, then go and cite a period where one of the primary possible issues is a lack of sufficient data?

Are you joking?

 

[erbkaiser]

This is all bullshit. What this whole crap is is a group of "scientists" who have just over a century of data at most*[....] And between AD 800 and 1200 temperatures across Europe were even higher on average than they are now.

Wot.

You criticise climate scientists for insufficient data, then go and cite a period where one of the primary possible issues is a lack of sufficient data?

Are you joking?

We may not have day-to-day data, but we know for a fact rivers like the Thames froze over in summer in the "little ice age" period. And we know that there were vineyards even in the Netherlands around AD 1000, something which climate made impossible until recently again. So it's not like we have no data from that period.
My point stands. Climate "scientists" are using a deliberately limited data set and are ignoring any facts that do not fit, in order to spread panic over what is essentially economic reasons. Look at the lobby's behind the climate scientists and you know why it is so important we are continually told the sea levels will rise by several metres and the world will become uninhabitable unless we do what they tell us.

 

[Hafnium]

Naysayers, please read at least the major conclusions of the report or other scientific studies on the subject. It seems like you make up your mind without reading any of it. Sadly, human activity does drive global warming even if it's hard to admit. The scientists agree, and the ones who benefit financially from not doing anything are the ones pumping money into convincing you otherwise.

I leave you with this:

 

[Product Placement]

This picture reminds me of an old argument I once found on youtube.

Don't worry. It's actually worth the 10 minutes of your time.

 

[barbzilla]

What really kills me is that they think this a a new thing. This has been on a cycle for billions of years, the only thing we did was manage to speed it up. As for stopping it, I would say that is similar to putting the cat back in the bag. I seriously doubt it will happen, and if you do manage it, you will have plenty of scars to remember it by.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That is cute but we could easily perminately destablize the biosphere to the point where nothing bigger than bacterium could live here for millions of years or longer. You want to see the power of a run away green house effect? Just look at Venus.

Not a chance. Changing the Earth to anything like Venus is way outside our capabilities, likewise, killing every ulti celled organism. Not going to happen.

However, you don't have to kill every multi celled organism on the planet to be doing something very wrong.

Solar and Wind power are fantastic. You're using nature to power things. Not only do you open up jobs in building and installing these, but you open up entire markets for selling and developing these. Investing in newer forms of energy is literally a newer market with tons of economic opportunities.

You open up new jobs in selling anything, mind.

And, currently, they really aren't fantastic, they are impractical for most large scale use. Main problem is storing power for solar, without a good way of doing that they aren't going to catch on. Having said that, certain applications don't require constant power...you could run a factory or something intermittently.

 

[Something Amyss]

Are you joking?

We may not have day-to-day data, but we know for a fact rivers like the Thames froze over in summer in the "little ice age" period. And we know that there were vineyards even in the Netherlands around AD 1000, something which climate made impossible until recently again. So it's not like we have no data from that period.[/quote]

We have less data than we do on the period where you're pooh-poohing the data. That's just bizarre. We don't even know if it was global or regional, and we don't know what the triggers were. These are not things that can be applied to today's claims.

My point stands. Climate "scientists" are using a deliberately limited data set and are ignoring any facts that do not fit,

[citation needed]

in order to spread panic over what is essentially economic reasons.

Ah yes, the lucrative peer review scene.

Look at the lobby's behind the climate scientists and you know why it is so important we are continually told the sea levels will rise by several metres and the world will become uninhabitable unless we do what they tell us.

So it's the lobbyists who profit? I'm confused here, help me out.