enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan

[ecofarm]

I've more blessing than I could ever deserve. Every minute is icing on the cake.

Ain't scared.

 

[Mithrae]

But, the issue remains which would be cheaper or less painful:
A. Impeding our economy by draconian reductions in fossil fuels OR
B. Attempting to mitigate the starvation you speak of through other means

Plus we have to consider: Additional people will starve if we impede our economy through reductions in fossil fuels. The people on the margin are hurt worst by creating drags on the economy, and that ultimately translates to some people starving. So, does that mean that reductions in fossil fuels also causes 'catastrophe'?

Conservatives are motivated by greed, yes indeed. And for that reason, their arguments are suspect, I have to concede. But, greed also fuels our economy, and when you put a brake on the effects of greed, it doesn't necessarily mean you are going reach your goal without paying a price. In the case in point, greed has used fossil fuels to create prosperity, and if something else could create that same level of prosperity, we would likely already be using it. If we force a switch to other energy sources, it is likely that prosperity will be harmed.

Burning fossil fuels causes harm, but so does not burning them. We really do need to figure out which causes the greater harm, and not make emotional appeals such as the one in your post. It may very well be that the starvation level would be greater from NOT burning them.

Pointing out that the adjective 'catastrophic' might reasonably be applied to estimates of the possible impacts of climate change is not an emotional appeal, merely personal preference or perspective. Some other people might feel that the adjective should only be used if the human species were threatened with extinction, perhaps - that a potential for a few hundred million excess deaths is not catastrophic - but that doesn't make the term incorrect or mere 'exaggeration,' or 'scare tactics' as someone else called it.

You're right that there'd be plenty of ways in which ham-fisted draconian restrictions on carbon emissions might cause as much or more harm than good. But that still leaves plenty of room for reasonable incremental improvements - targets which should have been set two decades ago, perhaps, but I imagine it's still better late than never. Shifting to nuclear power and renewables for electricity generation; targetted regulation or taxing of specific unnecessary high-emissions activities such as flights for tourism or business meetings where video conferencing would suffice, low-efficiency cars and so on; and assigning international limits to pollution on a per-capita basis, which countries currently emitting beyond their limit could buy from the less developed ones while they bring their levels down. None of these are likely to threaten anyone with starvation - indeed, the latter would help distribute more wealth and wellbeing to poorer countries - and if carefully implemented they likely wouldn't ruin any economies either.

We need only think about more draconian measures than these if it's already too late for such modest policies to be 'enough' - as James Lovelock seems to believe. But considering few if any governments are implementing even those modest steps (for longer than a term or two in office, at least), even that question seems rather moot. Restraint and regulation are not likely to bring voters out in droves, so they won't be advocated by any government in anything more than flowery oratory and collander commitments such as those we've seen so far: And that goes for paying anything to mitigate the impacts of climate change (especially overseas!) just as much as any efforts to slow the process itself.



Edit: I posted this in another thread, but I think it has some bearing on this discussion also:

Spoiler

Hurray! We’re Going Backwards!
"By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 17th December 2007
“After eleven days of negotiations, governments have come up with a compromise deal that could … even lead to emission increases. … The highly compromised political deal … is largely attributable to the position of the United States which was heavily influenced by fossil fuel and automobile industry interests. The failure to reach agreement led to the talks spilling over into an all night session …”(1)

These are extracts from a press release by Friends of the Earth. So what? Well it was published on December 11th – I mean to say, December 11th 1997. The US had just put a wrecking ball through the Kyoto Protocol. George W Bush was innocent; he was busy executing prisoners in Texas. Its climate negotiators were led by Albert Arnold Gore.

The European Union had asked for greenhouse gas cuts of 15% by 2010. Gore’s team drove them down to 5.2% by 2012. Then it did something worse: it destroyed the whole agreement.

Most of the other governments insisted that the cuts be made at home. But Gore demanded a series of loopholes big enough to drive a Hummer through. The rich nations, he said, should be allowed to buy their cuts from other countries(2). When he won, the protocol created an exuberant global market in fake emissions cuts. The western nations could buy “hot air” from the former Soviet Union. Because the cuts were made against emissions in 1990, and because industry in that bloc had subsequently collapsed, the FSU countries would pass well below the bar. Gore’s scam allowed them to sell the gases they weren’t producing to other nations. . . ."

 

[calamity]

I read that. It is followed by this:



Maybe I should clarify since we do have impact outside of CO2. I have never seen him claim any ill effects from CO2. He always speaks of land use changes, and that is the extent of what I see.

I am at now fault now of doing as others, assuming CO2 with AGW, but it's because that is all you guys rail against.

I see AGW more a result of deforestation than CO2 "pumped" into the air. That's not just my opinion.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deforestation-and-global-warming/

 

[Tim the plumber]

It seems to be widely agreed that climate change will likely cause increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, flooding, drought and difficulties in agriculture and food production generally. Plenty of people already starve, though that's more due to economic predation than global food scarcity.

How many more might starve due to declines in food production by the end of the century, due to climate change? I have no idea, myself. Certainly the human race is not in danger of becoming extinct. But severe effects even for a mere 5% of the population could mean something in the order of 400 million people. Some might call that a catastrophe. Some might not.

1 Can you show any peer reviewed papers which show that there is likely to be an increase in variability of weather/climate globally due to a slight increase in temperature?

2 The poorest billion people on the planet currently suffer hunger/starvation due to the use of food as fuel. I call that a catastrophe. Where do you get the idea that there is any chance of 5% of the world's population being at all troubled by global warming of the order which is described in the IPCC's reports? Where do you get the idea that the fertility of agricultural production will drop due to increased CO2 (artificially raised in glass houses to increase yields), increased rainfall and slightly increased temperatures?

 

[Mithrae]

1 Can you show any peer reviewed papers which show that there is likely to be an increase in variability of weather/climate globally due to a slight increase in temperature?

2 The poorest billion people on the planet currently suffer hunger/starvation due to the use of food as fuel. I call that a catastrophe. Where do you get the idea that there is any chance of 5% of the world's population being at all troubled by global warming of the order which is described in the IPCC's reports? Where do you get the idea that the fertility of agricultural production will drop due to increased CO2 (artificially raised in glass houses to increase yields), increased rainfall and slightly increased temperatures?

Biofuels produced from anything except waste products certainly are a stupid idea, promoted mostly as a myopic feel-good measure whilst studiously avoiding any thoughts of actually changing our lifestyles - a point which has been made by prominent environmentalists such as George Monbiot for a decade or more. (Feeding cars not people)

Even a quick search reveals a few peer-reviewed papers discussing the likely weather variations of global warming. Here's a couple of the more intriguing non-IPCC results:
Trends in Extreme Weather and Climate Events: Issues Related to Modeling Extremes in Projections of Future Climate Change (American Meteorological Society, 2000)
Indices for extreme events in projections of anthropogenic climate change (Climatic Change, 2008; incidentally the first free-access Springerlink I've ever encountered)

While I've encountered numerous commentaries on the subject before (of widely varying scientific credibility), I most recently "got the idea" of widespread impacts from climate change looking up projected sea level changes from some (as it turns out wildly inaccurate) claims which a detractor on the forum made regarding IPCC estimates a month or so ago. My region of Australia has suffered two bouts of flooding in the past three years, potentially both of which were worse than any we'd had in some four decades (in fairness the latter affected the nearby city in which my mother and grandparents lived, not me, but it was worse for them than the first lot) - and without all the flood-prevention measures which had been implemented during that period, would have been worse. Citing the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's webpage, Australia's Department of Environment suggests that from mid-range 50cm sea-level increase, "On average, Australia will experience a roughly 300-fold increase in flooding events, meaning that infrastructure that is presently flooded once in 100 years will be flooded several times per year with a sea level rise of 50 cm."

Globally, the studies cited by the CSIRO suggest that flooding will likely affect (in the middle of the range) 40 to 60 million people per year in the 2080s.


Estimates of the impact on agriculture are similarly divergent depending on the variables in play, but the general impression seems to be improved production in high- and some mid-latitude regions, while warmer regions and those which are already particularly wet or dry will suffer from greater extremes. As luck would have it, many of the wealthiest countries are in the lucky temperate and sub-arctic zones, while many of the poorest are in the tropical regions. But even in terms of global averages, many studies (alongside the article with which the thread began ) suggest a likelihood of declines in overall agricultural production:

Climate change risks for African agriculture (PNAS, 2010)
Predicting climate change effects on agriculture from ecological niche modeling: who profits, who loses? (Climatic Change, 2013)
Variation in the global-scale impacts of climate change on crop productivity due to climate model uncertainty and adaptation (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2013)
Climate Change and Agriculture : A Review of Impacts and Adaptations (World Bank, 2013)

 

[Tim the plumber]

^ Thank you for a well presented argument in reply.

I was under the impression that the chairman of the Royal statistical society had stated that there has been no statistically significant increase in storms.

Also whilst the number of floods in Australia may well increase and increase a by comparatively large multiple, going from virtually no rain for decades to it raining 5 times a year in the outback makes a good thing look bad.

I will have to accept that the papers you site say that there are these predicted effects. I wish I could get my computer to download such pdfs but it has a will of it's own. The projections of the warmists have a poor reputation for accuracy though.

Would you prefer to live in a world where we stopped using fossil fuels to avoid the increased flood risk to your self or one where we used the fossil fuel powered mechanical excavators etc to manage the threat so that it's not a problem? As you say the second round of recent flooding was greatly reduced by better flood defenses.

 

[Mithrae]

^ Thank you for a well presented argument in reply.

I generally try to give good answers to good questions

I was under the impression that the chairman of the Royal statistical society had stated that there has been no statistically significant increase in storms.

Assuming that statement is true as worded, can you think of any 'loopholes' which might render it all but meaningless?

Also whilst the number of floods in Australia may well increase and increase a by comparatively large multiple, going from virtually no rain for decades to it raining 5 times a year in the outback makes a good thing look bad.

That's coastal flooding, not increased rain in the outback. With little water on the interior, any increases in rainfall would have to come from the oceans. But while higher temperatures would increase evaporation, they'd likely hasten precipitation also; so as I commented, the impression I'm getting is that dry regions will become drier and wet regions will become wetter. The only obvious likely benefit is cold regions becoming warmer (while hot regions getting warmer is less good).

I will have to accept that the papers you site say that there are these predicted effects. I wish I could get my computer to download such pdfs but it has a will of it's own. The projections of the warmists have a poor reputation for accuracy though.

I mostly just read abstracts and glanced at conclusions :lol: Like I originally said, I myself have no real idea what the impacts of climate change are likely to be; but while I've seen innumerable academic, media and even government sources suggesting our global warming to be a Bad Thing, off the top of my head the only sources I recall seeing which have suggested it to be positive or neutral are the "even if" speculations of folk who are opposed to the idea in the first place.

In the spirit of fairness, do you know of any peer reviewed papers which show that 'warmist' projections since the 80s or 90s have been generally or significantly wrong regarding the impacts of the variables which they've modelled? (EG, failure to predict volcanic activity would be a failure only in some very special people's eyes )

Would you prefer to live in a world where we stopped using fossil fuels to avoid the increased flood risk to your self or one where we used the fossil fuel powered mechanical excavators etc to manage the threat so that it's not a problem? As you say the second round of recent flooding was greatly reduced by better flood defenses.

I was not very clear on that: The second recent flooding didn't much affect my city, but was worse for my grandparents/mother's nearby city. It's in comparison to the 1970s floods that prevention measures significantly reduced the impact - without which they might have set a water level record of more than a century (supposedly there was spectacular flooding in the 1890s).

But that rather misses the point I was making. People are starving now - and had been even before biofuels became a conscience-easing, lifestyle-enabling, food-consuming fad in wealthy nations - because people generally aren't inclined to share what they've got with those less fortunate. Quite the opposite in fact. (Indeed, there's quite a strong correlation between those who object to the general scientific opinion on AGW and those who object to sharing wealth and wellbeing with others!) So as I was commenting out to Dezaad, hinting in that post and moreso in the follow-up, it's a rather flimsy cop-out to pretend that people and governments so intransigent when it comes to even modest restraints on their carbon usage might suddenly become beneficent when it comes to mitigating the effects of that consumption.

No. God is a racist, it seems. (Mostly) white folks' pollution seems likely to harm African, southern Asian and other tropical regions the most, and if current trends are anything to go by only a fool would imagine that the rich countries are going to lift more than a token finger to help "manage the threat."

So I think I'll stand by my original view that 'catastrophe' is not a particularly unreasonable adjective to use in the circumstances, even if other folk adopt a different perspective

 

[Tim the plumber]

I have yet to see a peer reviewed paper, other than the IPCC's, which says that global warming is "bad". Of course that may well be mostly due to my inability to work pDF files. And that a science paper is unlikely to use such a word.

The skeptics here as else where on the net that I have come across are generally much more inclined to be the ones referring directly to such papers. You are not such a person. It must be extremely frustrating for you to have the scientifically illiterate types who have adopted the Green AGW thing as a religion constantly providing a straw man for the skeptics to knock down.

 

[tecoyah]

What does this matter anymore?

Some people will stanchly deny climate change, others will champion the reality of it.

Neither will be able to do anything to prevent it if real....and both will be forced to adapt or expire.


Personally, I find it likely to be a real issue that will impact my life...and am mentally preparing myself for possibly "Bad" times ahead. Thing is...there is not a damn thing I can do about it, beyond worrying, and that is a pointless activity.

Oh well....sucks to be my kids.

 

[Tim the plumber]

What does this matter anymore?

Some people will stanchly deny climate change, others will champion the reality of it.

Neither will be able to do anything to prevent it if real....and both will be forced to adapt or expire.


Personally, I find it likely to be a real issue that will impact my life...and am mentally preparing myself for possibly "Bad" times ahead. Thing is...there is not a damn thing I can do about it, beyond worrying, and that is a pointless activity.

Oh well....sucks to be my kids.

What are you worried about?

 

[tecoyah]

What are you worried about?

Food Production issues
Fresh water distribution
Population migration
Economic degradation
Human nature in trying times
Drought induced fires
Jet stream changes
Sea level rise
Ocean ecosystem degradation

I could go on....but there is little point, as I said, why worry about things you can not change.

 

[Tim the plumber]

Food Production issues
Fresh water distribution
Population migration
Economic degradation
Human nature in trying times
Drought induced fires
Jet stream changes
Sea level rise
Ocean ecosystem degradation

I could go on....but there is little point, as I said, why worry about things you can not change.

1 Food production; Increased CO2 and more rain and more warmth will produce a much higher fertility level. We currently use vast amounts of food for bio-fuel. There's a world over production of food.

2 Fresh water distribution; There is generally only trouble with this due to the fact that for some reason the world does not expect farmers to pay the going rate for water. Basically it should cost as much to fill a swimming pool as it costs to buy about 30Kg of rice.

3 Population Migration. Industrialized societies don't need to be located in the same place as the food is grown. If we allow the poor bits of the world to get rich then this will not be a problem.

4 Economic degradation; I'm not really sure what this means. Not using the best fuel we have would degrade the economy.

5 Human nature; Yep, that's always something to worry about. Incidentally why trust those who's plush livelihood comes from telling us we are all doomed? If they ever said "It's OK, nothing to worry about." they would be out of a job.

6 Jet stream changes; The earth's climate has always been variable, or at least it is during an interglacial bit of an ice age. The present situation is surprisingly very stable.

7 Sea level changes; How will a sea level change of less than 1m effect your life? It will probably be a lot less than 1m, maybe 8 inches.

8 Ocean ecosystem degradation; Yes, we need to change the focus of environmental concern away from the CO2 thing to the far more real regulation of the fishing of the oceans.

 

[tecoyah]

1 Food production; Increased CO2 and more rain and more warmth will produce a much higher fertility level. We currently use vast amounts of food for bio-fuel. There's a world over production of food.

2 Fresh water distribution; There is generally only trouble with this due to the fact that for some reason the world does not expect farmers to pay the going rate for water. Basically it should cost as much to fill a swimming pool as it costs to buy about 30Kg of rice.

3 Population Migration. Industrialized societies don't need to be located in the same place as the food is grown. If we allow the poor bits of the world to get rich then this will not be a problem.

4 Economic degradation; I'm not really sure what this means. Not using the best fuel we have would degrade the economy.

5 Human nature; Yep, that's always something to worry about. Incidentally why trust those who's plush livelihood comes from telling us we are all doomed? If they ever said "It's OK, nothing to worry about." they would be out of a job.

6 Jet stream changes; The earth's climate has always been variable, or at least it is during an interglacial bit of an ice age. The present situation is surprisingly very stable.

7 Sea level changes; How will a sea level change of less than 1m effect your life? It will probably be a lot less than 1m, maybe 8 inches.

8 Ocean ecosystem degradation; Yes, we need to change the focus of environmental concern away from the CO2 thing to the far more real regulation of the fishing of the oceans.

As stated:

What does this matter anymore?

Some people will stanchly deny climate change, others will champion the reality of it.

Neither will be able to do anything to prevent it if real....and both will be forced to adapt or expire.


Personally, I find it likely to be a real issue that will impact my life...and am mentally preparing myself for possibly "Bad" times ahead. Thing is...there is not a damn thing I can do about it, beyond worrying, and that is a pointless activity.

Oh well....sucks to be my kids.

Not worth arguing about anymore.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

OMG!!! The sky is falling!!! The sky is falling!!!

Fixed it for you.

 

[Mithrae]

I have yet to see a peer reviewed paper, other than the IPCC's, which says that global warming is "bad". Of course that may well be mostly due to my inability to work pDF files. And that a science paper is unlikely to use such a word.

Well, I offered five such papers in my earlier post, though without reading them more thoroughly it'd be better to say "bad for some regions" - mostly those poorest and least able to adapt. But obviously the IPCC's extensive literature reviews and summaries would offer a more comprehensive perspective than any one or few papers.

The skeptics here as else where on the net that I have come across are generally much more inclined to be the ones referring directly to such papers. You are not such a person. It must be extremely frustrating for you to have the scientifically illiterate types who have adopted the Green AGW thing as a religion constantly providing a straw man for the skeptics to knock down.

But as I said, I have never seen any 'sceptics' point to any such paper suggesting global warming to be generally beneficial, whereas in addition to those peer-reviews I googled up, many/most academic (eg. science organization publications), media and even many governement sources I've come across have suggested the opposite. The closest to it I've seen - and off the top of my head, the only thing I've seen - is Flogger posting a map of increased vegetation in many (but not all) regions since the 1980s: Other sources suggest that CO2 fertilization has some, but limited potential, while on the downside increased vegetation may well decrease albedo contribute to more warming.

But since I answered your request for peer-reviewed papers regarding increased weather variability/extremes, could you similarly oblige me regarding one of your claims? I've seen the claim repeated over and over and over by virtually every 'sceptic' out there, so this should not be a difficult request:

In the spirit of fairness, do you know of any peer reviewed papers which show that 'warmist' projections since the 80s or 90s have been generally or significantly wrong regarding the impacts of the variables which they've modelled? (EG, failure to predict volcanic activity would be a failure only in some very special people's eyes )

 

[Jack Hays]

Well, I offered five such papers in my earlier post, though without reading them more thoroughly it'd be better to say "bad for some regions" - mostly those poorest and least able to adapt. But obviously the IPCC's extensive literature reviews and summaries would offer a more comprehensive perspective than any one or few papers.



But as I said, I have never seen any 'sceptics' point to any such paper suggesting global warming to be generally beneficial, whereas in addition to those peer-reviews I googled up, many/most academic (eg. science organization publications), media and even many governement sources I've come across have suggested the opposite. The closest to it I've seen - and off the top of my head, the only thing I've seen - is Flogger posting a map of increased vegetation in many (but not all) regions since the 1980s: Other sources suggest that CO2 fertilization has some, but limited potential, while on the downside increased vegetation may well decrease albedo contribute to more warming.

But since I answered your request for peer-reviewed papers regarding increased weather variability/extremes, could you similarly oblige me regarding one of your claims? I've seen the claim repeated over and over and over by virtually every 'sceptic' out there, so this should not be a difficult request:

Interesting that one of the most read Astronomy & Geophysics papers in January 2014 is one of Svensmark's oldies.

Reports — Most-Read Articles during January 2014

astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/reports/most-read‎Astronomy & Geophysics


Feb 4, 2014 - Features: Henrik Svensmark. Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges A&G (2007) 48 (1): 1.18-1.24 doi:10.1111/j.1468-4004.2007.48118.x.