Just in case anyone still doesn't believe that climate change is real...

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/ipcc-report-2021-climate-un-b1899193.html

 

I read a deeply worrying article in the Guardian the other day about the Gulf Stream, the cold water from the melting Greenland ice sheet is now sinking into the depths of the Atlantic and might disrupt the Gulf Stream within the next few years.

If I can find it, I'll post a link.

Here it is, essential reading for all.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ts-spot-warning-signs-of-gulf-stream-collapse

Another worrying piece.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ial-election-congress-mike-carey-donald-trump

 

Wish I could find a Youtube vid I was shown 3 years ago - I laughed it off at the time as conspiracy nonsense. Along the lines of world leaders had been warned of a single disastrous 'season' (fires, floods, extreme conditions) that was far beyond anything imaginable but 'imminent'. Governments had been warned that somehow they needed to 'stop the world' for a couple of months and even that would only delay the event, not prevent it.

Well, the fires and floods we are seeing this year might be the event. But how the hell could they have 'stopped the world' I wonder??

I am really worried about all the stuff posted above, but lets be right, no leaders, or governments, will do anything other than pay lip-service to Global Warming until the day arrives when they can make serious money from it.

 

To be fair covid probably helped (and no I am not suggesting that it was deliberately invented/released for this purpose)

 

The issue is that whatever the West does China is going to just crack on regardless and we're too worried about surrendering the economic initiative to take necessary action by ourselves. It's like the prisoner's dilemma - we'll **** the planet because we know China won't blink.

 

It's scary stuff isn't it. Politicians meeting up and setting easy long term targets on CO2 isn't going to cut it. We need to take seriously drastic action now.

 

China is the biggest threat to both the planet and to world peace.
China routinely puts hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs into concentration camps where they are forcibly "re-educated". They are subject to mass rape, and forced sterilization.
Their children are forcibly separated from their parents and sent to "boarding schools"
Forced abortion, forced sterilization, forced birth control, rape (including gang rape), forced labour, torture, beatings, internment, brainwashing are all part of the daily treatment of these muslim people.
The Chinese colloquial name for them is "Turban heads"
The world retaliates by condemning this, China ignores the criticism and carries on. The world does nothing.
China is insidiously taking over territories that don't belong to them, building mid ocean islands for military use, and are very much eyeing taking Taiwan.

As for the planet, carbon pollution from China's coal-intensive economy last year outstripped the carbon pollution of the US, the EU, and other developed nations combined, making up a whopping 27 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
As China’s economy has grown in the last 30 years, so too have its emissions. While pollution from developed countries has largely been flat since 1990, it has more than tripled in China. The country’s soaring emissions and stable population mean that its per capita emissions have grown quickly, too. at 10.1 tons per person, and there's a lot of people in China. The world does nothing.
Meanwhile we cheerfully go to Poundland and buy cheap Chinese crap, of poor quality, made by effectively slave labour. It keeps the Chinese economy going, but what the hell, I got 12 batteries for a quid!

Until we start hurting their economy, China won't give a monkeys about what the West think, but as usual profit comes before planet

 

Sobering.

The scary thing too is that China's military numbers are larger than some developed nations entire population.

 

Comments from the press conference suggest covid had but a passing blip on the effect of CO2 and associated green house gases and that levels are rising still.

I recall first being aware of climate change at school, so probably about 35 years ago. Year on year, we've seen things get worse and had governments and companies telling us they are doing things.

We only seem to take drastic decisions when things become existential. I suspect climate change will be just the same.

 

I read that article and I found it deeply worrying. When you consider the disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow was pretty much based around the gulf stream being altered because of desalination of the oceans due to ice sheets melting its all the more alarming we're seeing irreversible (certainly within hundreds if not thousands of years) changes that not too long ago we were making hollywood films about.

I read a book a few years ago, and I wish I could remember what it was called. It ran through multiple effects of rising temperature that at the time weren't being discussed too widely.

The central tenet even at that time was that 1.5 degrees was a pipe dream, 2 degrees, was an absolute outsider and the likely event would be temperatures at around 4-5 degrees higher by the end of the century.

It was a very sobering book and as each year passes, the more it looks balanced.

 

Nobody can deny the earth is warming - you only have to look at the winters we had back in the 80s versus now. We used to get regular deep snow but its hit and miss now. And that is in 30-40 years. However, I am not sure how much is man made and how much is natural both from the effects of the sun and maybe other factors from space? The earth has gone through many warming and cooling cycles and there weren't cars and factories back many thousands of years ago. I wonder if any studies have been done to the level of radiation out in space that the earth travels through. Everything goes in cycles. What we do on earth will improve the quality of the environment but i dont think anything we do will stop the procession towards warming.

 

Too easy "but China". We started the industrial revolution so we need to lead the way regarding climate change.

 

Said this. Us in our 20s will probably see the end of the world.

 

It's the rate of change which demonstrates that this is clearly as a result of our actions:

 

that is just 22000 years - we are merely a blip in time on earth and its evolution.

 

Earth has experienced cold periods (or “ice ages”) and warm periods (“interglacials”) on roughly 100,000-year cycles for at least the last 1 million years. The last of these ices ended around 20,000 years ago.

https://www.climate.gov/news-featur...armed-and-cooled-naturally-throughout-history


https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hottest-earths-ever-been

 

I don't understand your point - the evidence points to the planet heating at an unprecedented rate following the industrial revolution and the exponential increase is greenhouse gases that followed, and your argument is "it'll be reyt"?

 

The sun went though something like the "Maunder Minimum" in it's output cycle a few years ago. The last time it resulted in the Thames freezing over and people having fairs on the ice, this time the world just kept getting warmer.

I get what you're saying but thinking like that is dangerous. Disasters of the past have shaped the way we design things so that whatever happens, even if unlikely, they are designed to withstand them safely. So why do people insist on thinking the in opposite way when it comes to the effect we have on the planet? We only have the one, when it's shot, so are we.

Edit: unless of course you believe that Branson and Bezos are onto something.

 

A different slant on things:

 

Mercury is much closer to the sun than Venus, but Venus is signifcantly hotter. Why? Carbon Dioxide rich atmosphere. If you go into serious geological time on Earth, you'll find that every time some cataclysm has released large amounts of CO2, the climate has warmed significantly.

Now it's literally indisputable fact that burning fossil fuels releases CO2. It's basic chemistry. It's not like this is 'special CO2' just because we put it there. CO2 will do what CO2 does.

Earth's climate is a very finely balanced equilibrium. It only takes a small shift to start a self-perpetuating cycle. For example, a small reduction in ice sheet size (with ice being smooth and white) instantly means we're reflecting less heat from the sun away from our planet. So we get a bit warmer, so more ice melts, etc etc.

And it's not only CO2 we're causing damage with. Methane is even more potent, and industrialisation and agriculture have increased natural levels of methane in the atmosphere significantly.

On top of this, we're building cities out of rough, dark materials. These absorb heat from the sun. This also adds to artificial warming.

When you see anti-science climate change rubbish, ask yourself who is coming up with it, and what their motive could possibly be. Spoiler alert, there's usually money and much capitalism involved.