Scientists warn on climatic 'tipping points'
An international team of scientists has presented its list of those regions of the planet most at risk from global warming, which are in danger of "sudden and catastrophic collapse" should they pass "tipping point" thresholds beyond which they will never recover. The researchers, comprising experts from the Potsdam Institute for …
After all, the Earth has got over far worse in the past.
Well I say safe, safe for the Earth, not safe for us. In fact it was a disaster for all living things when the Poles froze in the first place. I can't see the inverse being any less traumatic.
Amazon ... heading for 'catastrophic collapse'
Does Jeff Bezos know?
I am seeking funding to start my new busness....
it is going to be based on the wallmart model, stack it high, sell it cheep....
to start with, my product line will be air conditioning units and refridgeration equiptment.... this will hopefully bring on the rise in global tempriture a little quicker... then the second part of the busness takes over,,,, selling small boats, and sunblock !!!!
mine is not the green one !!!
The planet would never recover if these "scientists" let the science do the talking instead of preaching doom and gloom and playing the government sponsored terror card (we will terrify you into submission).
I frankly do not believe a single word any "scientist" says if they rely on trying to scare the pants off people to get the message across.
All they are scared of is the money stopping flowing to them.
-NEVER- recover? Utter rubbish. Despite what all the doom-sayers claim, we are currently in a relatively cold snap in comparison to temperatures over geological time. So, the fact is that there have already been times in earth's past when it has been much hotter, but the ice sheets etc still managed to form somehow.
Come the next Ice Age (and it will come eventually) and the current ice coverage will pale into insignificance.
NEVER is a very, very, long time!
[...] and the reporting has to get more and more hysterical [...]
Nigel Calder - The Great Global Warming Swindle
This kind of stuff really scares the bejesus out of me.
I think we're too far gone now, and that millions are going to start dying over the next decade or two.
We're all fucked.
I wonder how much all that infrastructure is going to cost to replace? Still,
I suppose if built to sufficiently low standards, it'd need to be replaced anyway.
I know the trend is to think of 'global warming' as the root of all evil these days, and I'm sure this comment will start a flame fest, but I don't think that researchers have enough data or experience to predict vast climate shifts yet. And the announcement last year that NASA found its own data in error, finding that the 'hottest day on record' is actually early in the 20th century, and that no real trend exists, did little to bolster confidence in the dire threat of global warming. The ecosystem on this planet is a complex and not well understood beast even now, and even a century's worth of data is a very minor blip in the planet's history. Should we strive to reduce CO2 and methane emissions? Should we make everything 'greener' and try not to pollute? Of course we should. It's common sense if nothing else. We all have to live on Earth for now, and only an idiot sh*ts where they eat. But I personally think that global warming is the new 'fad' or 'hip cause', and any wide ranging proclamations of catastrophe should be taken with a grain of your favorite chemical that has a low impact on the environment.
Sounds like we're all buggered then.
What we need is a bioengineering boffin to create some sort of self replicating, solar powered carbon dioxide absorbing device that could be spread around the world.
For larger sites they'd need to be securely fastened to the ground and present a large surface area to the atmosphere via a network of upright and spreading connected bracing structures. The conversion engines themselves would need solar derived power, the power harnessing and generating component of the device would need to be sited close to or ideally in situ with the CO2 converter, such that each had an adequate supply of light and atmospheric CO2. We can call them Terrestrial Resource Environmental Engines, (abbreviated to TREE for simplicity).
Where space constraints preclude a full sized TREE installation, maybe a miniature version could be produced along the lines of Portable Local Atmosphere Neutralising Terrestrial Solutions (lets call them PLANTS)
Once self replicating versions of these TREE's and PLANTS can be produced the inventor will be laughing all the way to the bank!
Paris obviously, as who else knows more about getting wood?
gets coat and the knitted balaclava, thanks.
They said the same thing in the 70s, and the 50s, and in the 1860s, and... well, on and on and on. It was bullcrap then and it's bullcrap now.
Nobody listens to the scientists. You hear them in the papers they produce but nobody goes there. They go to politicians, figureheads, newspapers. And they listen to them.
You're busy texting someone while unbeknownst to you, you're on a level crossing. Someone sees a train heading for you and you cannot see it.
"There's a train coming" he cries.
You do nothing.
"There's a fucking train! move it!!!!" he cries.
"Stop getting hysterical" you reply.
Splat.
Judging by most of the above comments, it still seems like people are in a complete state of denial about this.
Things look bleak, yet no one seems to give a fuck.
I read an article on the BBC website the other day about Sharks. "But what does that have to do with the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis?", I hear you ask. Well, it turns out that the less sharks there are, the more little fishes there are. The more little fishes there are, the less algae there is (because little fishes eat algae) and the less algae there is, the warmer the planet will be. CALL ME A COMPLETE IDIOT, but this catastrophism has now officially gone too far. The BBC article was effectively saying that SHARKS control the climate! If you want to sell your scientific paper to the media, make sure it has a global warming angle. I have one lined up already on the effects on global surface temperature of birds flapping their winds (creating a nice cooling draft). The less birds there are, the warmer the planet will be. Comprende?
Now, in all seriousness, these hypothesis are nothing more than an exercise in curve fitting. That is, you get a load of data points and then fiddle with a load of variables until you can make a line go through all of them. Please check out climate-audit.org for more information on this ridiculous so called "science", or sepp.org for some entertaining archive links. There are more, many more. Scientists are fiddling (with statistics) while Rome (overpopulation) burns. If these very intelligent but unbelievably stupid people could turn their minds to something more useful, like promoting contraception and birth control, the planet would be in a much better state.
I apologise in advance for my rant.
Let us imaging some recently qualified, numerate physics PhD graduate. What should he do?
(i) 10 years as a postdoc at Imperial College (which pays quite well, relatively speaking) might get you to the top of the relevant salary scale, paying maybe 36k. That is, unless you have to take a pay cut (or freeze) to stay employed at all. Career takes off? I recall IC professorial salaries in the physical sciences are typically 60-80k.
(ii) Walk out after your PhD and join some sort of investment bank(etc), start on 40k ish and earn a few bonuses. Probably not too hard to make 80k within 10 years if you try.
Hmm, there's a tricky career choice for the money hungry.
But wait! Also prepared to lie, sensationalize, and misinform, and clever enough to get away with it? Would you rather:
(a) be part of a community of scientists, who, despite various foibles, really _are_ trying to accurately model the world around us, and who constantly cross check results, assumptions, and models.
(b) invent, model, or sell complex financial instruments whose accuracy can only ever be determined once it's too late to do anything; and even then you don't really know: was it your model, or the (un)luck of the markets?
Oooh, now that's a tricky one. There's little money in science, and it's harder to get away with sharp practice. Hmm....
PS: Non-sensational climate science is in science journals. It is not the fault of scientists that the media generally only reports the sensational; nor their fault that the media reports the sensational because that is what sells.
"Global warming" is not just a fad or hip cause, it is a new religion, with new high priests scaring many people into paying them lots of money and respect which they would otherwise not get. While cleaning up you environment is a good thing, most things advocated by the high priests to "save the earth" are pretty ridiculous, such as hybrid cars (great big batteries, extra weight, wasteful charging processes producing pollution in other places, lots of waste lead scrap), the silly tree planting to compensate CO2 emission and especially all the braying talk producing even more CO2.
Dont buy anywhere to live in less than (100 - <your age>) feet above sea level...
Can't see the problem. There's supposed to be too much rubbish for landfill. Why don't they use all this excess waste to build up the land to protect us from the ravages of allegedly rising sea levels?
Global warming my...
Have you noticed that as people get better informed and thus more skeptical of the doomsayers, that the doomsayers get more dramatic. If people aren't scared, people won't give them money or vote them into office. The truth isn't scary, the truth doesn't get ratings. The truth is Al Gore's worst nightmare.
Shock, Horror!
Arctic ice retreating, melting like never before!
The end of the world is nigh, imagine living in a world where it was so hot you could sail around the top of Canada.
How did the vikings manage, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage how did they do it - did they have patio heaters and 4x4s to irrevocably damage the earth?
I know what will fix the problem, Tax it. There - done.
Now I am off to burn some history books to keep warm the day after tomorrow!
You've fallen for trap 1. Citing discredeted sources... There are so many complaints about that show that I wouldn't even admit to having seen it in. Even the people in the film have denounced it as wildly inaccurate and mi-representing.
http://flet.org/node/20
That was easy...
<--3x2, that's you that is... ;)
Sadly, I thought that the readership of Reg was a little more sophisticated than BBC HYS ranters or Ebaumsworld.
Yes I am a Scientist. In fact I am sitting in my lab typing this now. I can ensure you that the Scientific Method is more important than anything to the vast majority of us.
Like most scientists, although I have studied for longer and in more depth than a student medical doctor to get my Ph.D, my earnings are less than the average bricklayer. We do this work because it is important to us and to humanity. Perhaps this suggests to you that we are not a bunch of snide dirty liars who will do anything to get our hands on some cash? Had I spent my time and efforts into becoming a banker or a businessman or a medical doctor instead, I sure that I could be a very rich man by now.
So far, the majority of evidence tested by the highly stringent Scientific Method suggests that global warming is very real. I find the uneducated layman who is prepared to declare his superior knowlege an interesting if frightenting scientific study in itself - e.g. christians do not believe in evolution as if the bible is wrong, there is probably no heaven (and therefore no afterlife), while global warming deniers may not want to admit the possibility, as they do not want to change their lifestyle (ditch the new 4x4/BMW, stop flying to Ibiza for 2 weeks every year etc), or simply cannot face the frightening reality that faces us.
@ Paul R. So far as "oh well, humanity will deal with it, wrong. The last time the ice caps melted, the ocean conveyor stopped and the seas became stagnant and most sealife died. Huge amounts of poison gas were emitted into the atmosphere, and most of the larger life forms became extinct. Humanity could probably not survive this.
You're trying to tell me that from the time of the Industrial Revolution , we've pumped more CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere than 4.5 BILLION years of orogenesis, tectonic activity, and biological life formation?
Seriously?
Because when I did Geology (albeit A-Level), I was informed of exactly how these things affected the poles (Ice caps and magnetic), and how the alteration of the atmosphere attributes to these.
Do you folk seriously not know that the magnetic poles aren't permanent? They totally disappear for a short period of time, then reverse (over a geological time period).
Do you folk seriously not know that the Ice Caps aren't permenant? That minor ice-ages are in fact 10,000 year cycles (where the ice receeds and grows), and major ice ages occur every couple of million years (Where ice TOTALLY melts and reforms to cover large parts of Europe)?
I guess not. That's why we have all this bullshit faux-science about Patio Heaters and cow farts.
Flames for the convection heater warming my feet right now.
yes but we're (EU) expected to solve global warming by paying a soon forthcoming carbon tax! (small places like India, Brazil, China, USSR and oh yes, USA excepted) as the whole thing is debatably of natural origin due to solar wobbles, cometary influence, cows flatulence - go on then - I admit Jeremy C. and his industrial revolution might have upped the rate of growth a bit.
I just paid my TV license so I won't be arrested in 2008, if I pay my carbon tax(es) then I'm sure Global Warming will stop!?
won't it?
Paris understands everything
...why there are multi billion dollar projects, ongoing, which aim to create cities on reclaimed land in the middle east. Palm Island, World Islands anyone?
It seems a little strange to me that we are predicting rising sea levels at the same time as actually building in areas which would be flooded? Should I believe the guys investing several hundred billion in just-above sea-level construction or should i believe the man in the lab coat with the brown envelope sticking out of his pocket?
This is just another hobgoblin to frighten the population.
Also, there is an elephant in the room - when our ill-conceived "solutions" to halt climate change fail, as they surely will, we will have to face that elephant.
Its called mass-murder on a global scale. Maybe it will be called the "final solution"
<..>Judging by most of the above comments, it still seems like people are in a complete state of denial about this.<..>
Or perhaps we are not quite as gullible as some. Perhaps we know how to separate hard science from complete guess work. Perhaps some of us are old enough to have been here before. Northern cites under 100ft of ice, 25 billion starving humans by 2000 - any of this ringing any bells yet?
Yeh, there is no proof that smoking causes cancer, all the scientists are still debating it, no evidence at all. My grandmother smoked 100 a day and died of naturally causes when the cancer naturally stopped her lungs working.
People have died of lung cancer before man smoked so smoking can't cause lung cancer.
It's urban smoke islands that cause lung cancer, people with lung cancer tend to congregate near hospitals causing a locally increased number of lung cancer victims near the centre of smoky towns.
Whose to say the world won't be better if people die of lung cancer, what if hitler was alive today, would the would be a better place?
Read about how them scientishians are cashing in, in my new book 'The Great Global Smoking Swindle" priced 13.99 at all good book stores.
There seem to be a lot of people here who don't allow any amount of evidence to the contrary to affect their beliefs. A bit like religion, or more like the smoking lobby really. Perhaps our brains have been hardwired to self-destruct - a defect that wasn't spotted before release to manufacturing. Rendering the planet unfit for human habitation should do the trick.
You've got it wrong way round.
By flapping their wings, birds are acting as a stirring device. They are increasing the kinetic energy in the molecules and are effectively increasing the air temperature.
Save the planet - Kill more birds!
Paul, what is the total government budget on research? Has it gone up in line with real inflation? Compare to the figures being spend in, ooh, 2002, when GW was "known" by the US government to be wrong. So wrong, in fact that people who proposed that it *could* be right were sacked from positions of authority in the US government heirachy.
Now, please check how much money is being spend on research to find oil? Process oil. Make medicines. Research treatments.
Has science spending gone up in these private areas more or less than government spending?
Now, if it turns out that there is little change in government research, then how can scientists be making all this shit up just to keep a research grant? At worst, some scientists are not working under other areas, but they WOULD have still been paid if AGW wasn't persued, just in a different area.
If private spending on research has gone up more than government spending, then surely if the scientists were worried about unemployment would be pandering to these private interests and taking jobs there, not trying to stymie their efforts to make more profit.
And your conspiracy requires that ALL scientists are in on the scheme: even those arguing against would have at some time had an opportunity to be told "play along and we'll get loadsamoney" and then decided to just say "no" rather than extract the evidence of this conspiracy to defraud the public purse for the benefit of scientists.
They also said it before the Black Death.
Oh.
They are political evangelists
I find it quite depressing reading many of the reactions posted. Let's assume that the average IQ of an El Reg reader is (probably) higher than the national average and certainly more informed than many on the planet.
If approx 50% of people who have posted on this topic think we're being swindled into believing that global warming is pure hype, what hope is there for convincing others?
Suggest you wake up from your denial paralysis and stop swallowing hook, line and sinker the media messages planted by the corporates to discredit the genuine research that has been undertaken.
Wheeling out the 'odd scientist' and claiming that this negates all the other work to date is laughable or at least would be if there weren't so many muppets who actually believe it. It's taken nearly 40 years to get the global warming message into the mainstream media backed by millions of hours scientific research. However, no problem - we can offset all that by putting out a single programme that produces the element of doubt and bingo, jobs a good 'un.
Seem to remember the same disbelief ref the ozone layer when first raised. Why is it that so many people require absolute proof when the indicators are already relatively clear? Surely the downside is so bad that it is worth trying to avoid even if the worst of the predictions don't come to pass.
The Indians had it right when they used to ask "What impact will this decision have on the 5th generation?". Now we seem to be struggling to get beyond which hospital has Britney has gone into?
For all those who wish to put their heads in the sand there is one positive -we are probably already f**ked. Hope you don't mind having your grave spat on by your grandchildren - then again I guess you won't be admitting your current stance to them by that stage. Consume and enjoy!
I never said anything like what you've attributed to me, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
But, even if what you say is true, and man doesn't survive such a catastrophe, so what I say. We do not actually hold some form of exalted position whereby we must survive against all odds. As a scientist I am sure that you're perfectly aware that we have only existed for the blink of an eye in geological terms. Whilst we may have achieved many things (not all necessarily stuff to be proud of) that no other species on this planet has, that does not imbue us with special survival rights when the inevitable *natural* climatic cycles roll on and bring about the next great catastrophe (and the one after that, and the one after that, etc. etc.) When we're gone and forgotten, some other species will no doubt arise to hold our position. May they repeat our successes, but avoid our failures.
I find the comment about the uneducated layman to be a major proof of the lack of your scientific method.
You have done zero research into me or my education so to assert that I belong in this group is a massive shortfall in your educated position.
Try this for scientific method.
We already have evidence that the planet has already recovered from situations far worse than predicted so therefore the whole NEVER RECOVER position is fundamentally flawed.
I am sure you can apply scientific method to that and see the flaws without me hitting you with a cloo by four
[...] If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic [...]
[...] The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard pressed to keep up with it [...]
[...] The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change when the result become a grim reality [...]
Newsweek April 28th 1975
(Very lengthy article on the forthcoming Apocalypse of Global Cooling)
As for "captain kangaroo" - pointing me to the Holy Scripture of your Priesthood won't make me a convert.
"Even the people in the film have denounced it as wildly inaccurate and mi-representing."
So Nigel Calder, ex editor of New Scientist, is wrong when discussing the media feeding frenzy for ever more fantastical predictions is he?
Boy, they really have done a number on you.
a symptom of over consumption. Happens to be hydrocarbons today
water tomorrow? We need to move to a market based on services not stuff..
BTW I'm suprised at the lack of intellectual debate here...and anyone who quotes from the 'Great Global Warming Swindle' should be sectioned under the mental health act as a threat to society
"So far, the majority of evidence tested by the highly stringent Scientific Method suggests that global warming is very real. I find the uneducated layman who is prepared to declare his superior knowlege an interesting if frightenting scientific study in itself -"
You aren't a scientist, at least I'm sure you haven't read the Wegman report on peer review in Climate Science. If you had, you wouldn't be so patronising to us "laymen", many of whom are in fact highly educated independent thinkers. We do not rest our intelligence on the authority of others. You may do so, working in the Ivory tower of science, but don't assume we are all as compliant and thoughtless as you.
The process of peer review is not a guarantee of scientific integrity and neither is it a guarantee of scientific correctness. In climate science, it isn't even stringent. In fact it is lax, "chummy" and totally inadequate. It would help if just for starters, the climate community actually occasionally published their data. Often they do not and when asked to do so by interested parties, call in lawyers to protect it. Moreover, it would also help if these people, schooled as they are in "Climatology", were actually experts on statistics. They are not. Once again, see Wegman and the whole hockey stick debacle (one of many, if you care to investigate for yourself).
i've been in the US and what strikes me is when talking to most US residents they seem to think that there's nothing wrong with the climate and that its all a natural phenomenon.
On the other side of the world (EU) people are genuinely afraid.
I know i'm afraid - not for myself but for my kids and their kids.
i really believe scientists are doing a good job with the data at hand.
We've never been in this predicament before so i can understand the sceptiscism about not knowing how to accurately read & interpret the signs available to us.
BUT i really hope that Bush gets his head out of his ass and stops thinking about the economy (not ratifying the Kyoto protocol because "its bad for the economy" , or "lets undo the ban that Clinton put in place against building a road right through 43 milion acres of national forest") and instead starts thinking about the future of his little corner of the world
There's just no changing the mind of US ppl, for each argument you have they have 2 more against it.
Lets see... Vikings used to grow crops in Greenland and England had vineyards before it got cold the last time. So how is it wrong for the climate to return to the pre-chill temperatures?
By the way, the largest greenhouse gas component of the atmosphere is H2O. Some one please tell me how we can reduce the H2O in the air (without killing everyone) so that we can turn the Earth into a snowball.
I'm not the scientist Mark is but I spent a lot of time doing 'green' work, not because someone told me to but because I saw a need for it after a lot of reading and thought. I'm careful with my carbon footprint (so the naysayers above can burn it for me I'm sure).
I may be wrong, I may be right. If I'm wrong then some commercial damage will have been done and the economy will not have grown quite as much.
If I'm right then the cost of a possible disaster could be truly immense (I said could be, not will be). So I err on the side of the precautionary principle.
Others like their cars, holidays, gadgets and what doesn't hurt them or their family, personally, right now, does not exist. And the less they know about the subject, the easier it is to deny everything.
Do the work then - read the IPCC reports (the shortened summary report at least), talk to climate scientists as I did, read the sceptics' posts and see how non-sceptics respond, then weigh the evidence, then post.
<...> BTW I'm suprised at the lack of intellectual debate here...and anyone who quotes from the 'Great Global Warming Swindle' should be sectioned under the mental health act as a threat to society <...>
Yes, I believe that's one of the methods all the major religions fall back on to silence heretics.
He's probably paid by "big oil" or some such but what the hell ....
http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
<...>Suggest you wake up from your denial paralysis and stop swallowing hook, line and sinker the media messages planted by the corporates to discredit the genuine research that has been undertaken.<...>
The worrying thing about the whole climate issue for many is complete lack of criticism by the corporates or indeed anyone else. When people become afraid to speak out against the prevailing view for whatever reason you have moved well beyond the realms of science.
"You're trying to tell me that from the time of the Industrial Revolution , we've pumped more CO2 and other "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere than 4.5 BILLION years of orogenesis, tectonic activity, and biological life formation?"
Yes (though for most of those 4.5bn years there was no biological life, so natch).
Because we have calcification causing rocks to absorb CO2, we have increasing biomass locking up carbon and so on.
On average, they cancel out.
When we burn oil, there's no mechanism that takes carbon and creates new oil deposits.
I've done more research into you than you have into climatology. I read your posting for a start.
As for calling you an idiot, I never did. I know NOTHING about wiring an electrical system. I'm fairly sure I could find out.
You may be well read on engineering a dam (another area I know nothing about) but that doesn't mean you know squat about climatology and numerical modelling. That doesn't say you're stupid (opinionated and thin-skinned, yes) but there's only so much one person can know and it's a lot less than the sum of human knowledge (unlike the renaissance where a VERY smart person could know enough to be knowledgeable on any subject).
So get that stick out of your arse.
A couple of nice graphs on global temperature change in the 20th century shows that atmospheric CO2 lags the arctic temperature graph. Typical of the political/IPCC establishment to address an effect of climate change instead of the cause. Of course, it is not so easy to turn down the sun...
The Green house effect is real, no denying it, IR absorbing molecules in our atmosphere ensure a nice warm blanket. Human activity has with no doubt increased our contribution greater than simply breathing and breeding, and the earth is warming up. These are all facts, however what 4 degrees increase in global temperature will do to our sacred planet are at best educated guess and nearly always doom and gloom.
Here are some of my (not at all educated, though I hold a PhD in chemistry) positive prediction of 4 degree increase global temperature.
The Sahara desert will become a tropical paradise in the next 200 years.
Greenland will reveal, large fertile plains and rise above sea level as the weight of ice is removed.
Everyone will live closer to the seaside.
New Trade paths will exist shorting the distance traveled by ships (saving energy).
My point is the biggest fear from climate change is shift in power. If Europe and America suffer large drought and flooding, losing valuable land, whilst other areas of the world may gain something from the change of climate.
But the real issue, is over population it is that which is the greatest threat to humanity and the world. It doesn't matter how carbon neutral the world gets, if it continues to grow, more ecosystems and land will be consumed to sustain us.
Save the world, use contraception.
Raise taxes! Ban some luxury items that emit inconsequential amounts of CO2! Tell everybody to not use energy! Develop carbon-neutral methods of energy production that can never meet any realistic level of demand (yes, wind, I'm looking at you)! DEMAND that everyone uses seriously impractical methods of 'transport'!
Only these petty, ineffective measures can save us now!
Paul, you opine that the only reason for pushing AGW as truth is because this continues funding.
Well what proof is there that the funding of scientists rely on AGW?
We had government scientists with funding in the past. We had scientists investigating AGW for more than a century (before this was a hot button topic), so faddism can't explain THAT. Yet you can't debunk that old investigation.
Hence I asked the questions I asked. They could prove how much extra funding scientists get because they proclaim AGW and rating it against other forms of renumeration of a scientist would show whether this is a valid economic point.
If it cannot be proved that there's more funding, or that more and better funding is from NOT persuing AGW investigations, then your premise that scientists are motivated in this investigation by grant applications must be incorrect.
... not "Whiteland" or "Iceland". Oh, hang on, that one was already taken ...
