to think climete change is a pile of bollocks?

[moogy1a]

Summers in Britain to get colder and wetter

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20758780

earlier this year," oh no, they're going to get hotter and drier"
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9038988/Climate-change-will-make-UK-new-holiday-destination.html

climate change scients cherry pick the data they need to fit whatever political agenda they need it to fit.
If you start looking into reports, they are a huge mess of completely contradictory results.
I also like the way the term"global warming" has been quietly ditched in favour of climate change as it became increasingly obvious the world wasn't hotting up.

to chibi. hope you're not a teacher of any sort

whoops omit the emit - just absorb IR.

other molecules have chemical bonds that are v good at this, carbon dioxide is not unique here, but is present in higher concentrations than (most? not sure!) ofhther greenhouse gases

i guess you are referring to me taking the piss. i am not. i was trying to understand what you were talking about, i was unsure what you meant. sorry.

What would save us is a great plague (or what would save the earth) . Something that wipes out half the population then our fuel demands would half and we could get back to a more balanced demand on the earth's products.

Agree drizzlecake, or maybe another ice age? It's true that the climate has varied greatly over the years, but I was of the understanding that, historically, swift changes in weather conditions on planet earth have usually resulted in quite a lot of unpleasantness for the occupants...

Adapation might work in the long run, and it might be advantageous for the population to be trimmed a bit from time to time, but not if you are one of the trimmed.

Could we perhaps assume that with almost 7 billion people on the earth, it wouldn't take a dramatic shift to cause quite a lot of unpleasantness?

thanks, chibi

Flicktheswitch

"What pisses me off is the assertion that it is man made."

... It's not an assertion, it's a scientific conclusion with a high level of certainty. I don't like it that smoking causes cancer. It doesn't make it less true.

What pisses me off is people being all cod-philosophical about climate change as if there is nothing to be done "A lot happened before we came along, and a lot will happen after we're all gone" etc...

What we are talking about here is an avoidable impact that will cause misery, death and poverty for millions of people mainly in poor countries, in our lifetimes and our children's lifetimes -- as well as massive economic costs the world over.

Our lack of ambition to face up to that pisses me off.

the people who will be most affected by climate change will be thise least equipped to cope; poor, and likely to live in places that do not have the resources (in any sense) to either mitigate the effects of these changes or help their populace to adapt.

it might be really shitty for people caught up in floods here (and honestly i am not trying to minimise) but we have a nationalised response- relief agencies can be mobilised, there are resources to accomodate displaced people etc etc. I am not trying to make flooding sound like a wheeze, it is devastating, but not devastating in the way a superhurricane is for a country like haiti.

Merrymouse, drizzlecakes - are you seriously hoping for half the world's population (half the mothers, fathers, children, doctors, teachers etc. . Half your children, friends etc.....) to die off in some natural or man-made calamity? !?

This would be really, really shit.

Seriously.

Proposals to deal with climate change are to agree ambitious targets, reflect climate change costs in fossil fuel prices, invest more in renewable energy and energy efficiency and more efficient farming and transport, reduce waste, protect tropical forests, provide funding and technology to support developing countries to adapt and mitigate. It's not that painful.

Why wish for an apocalypse instead?

Well, clearly then. Pillocks is happening.
Good night.

Flicktheswitch - do you take the link between smoking and cancer, or the theory of evolution as assertions, or do you accept scientific consensus in these cases?

The term global warming is, in my opinion, more likely to have been ditched to prevent fuckwits people poopooing the fact that lowering emissions is important, because its not conventionally hotter where we live.

Reports I've seen often acknowledge the effect of mini ice ages but also show that man is having an influence on climate over and above this.

Flicktheswitch -

Science doesn't prove things.

Scientists come to conclusions based on the evidence. The scientific consensus is that manmade climate change is significant.

Hmmm...I wonder how the last ice age ended without our carbon emissions...?

Milankovitch Cycles

The Earth's orbit changes over 3 cycles (21,000 year precessional, 41,000 year tilt, and ~100,000 year eccentricity) which interlace with each other.

The end of the ice age and current warm Holocence period was essentially caused by the Northern Pole receiving a significantly greater amount of solar insolation during the summer melt season than for 120,000 years (since the last interglacial). A catastrophic collapse of the ice sheets occured raising sea-levels 120m, and humans spread around the globe.

No, Himalaya you missed my point (although I admit maybe I should have used ).

I do not want half the world's population to die (and assume neither does drizzlecakes), but assume that those who argue that climate change has always happened and that man can always adapt are quite happy with this kind of adaptation.

Am I being unreasonable to wonder why people who believe stupid things often can't spell?

You don't have to be happy about something to accept it as inevitable.

I just don't think anything will be done, I believe on of the reasons for this is because we can't do anything, because we are part of the cycle not outside of it.

We will bring about our own destruction, we can't help it, it is part of the design.

Believing this doesn't make me happy, I just accept that it is life, life isn't fair or even pleasant mostly, it just is.

Sadly, the planet is in the middle of a mass extinction not seen since the dinosaur times. We are pushing thousands of species over the edge. Your children if they are young are only ever likely to see many animals in captivity due to their being wiped out in the wild/ cornered only in small reserves. This is real and happening now. Global warming is just the icing on the cake. Yes we are just part of nature however we have wreaked huge change and destruction in the world. With another 3 bn people in the next 50 years its plain to see where this is heading. I am generally an optimist on day to day things but longer term, theres little to be cheerful about.

Merrymouse, ah, fair enough.

Depresses me how this discussion always seems to flip between disbelief and fatalism, without ever stopping on "it's real, it's scary, lets solve it".

I think there are political and technological solutions that don't involve going back to the dark ages. Three billion more people also means three billion more problem solvers, not just three billion more mouths to feed. I do think human creativity and cooperation can get us out of this, but it will take more ambition.

seeker yes YABU.
Some people who make typing errors do so as they are bf'ing 2 week old babies.
AIBU to think a simple typing error is not very relevant to the discussion?
AIBU to think respondents should read the whole thread where I have already explained my heinous crime of using an e instead of an a?

Yes, himalaya, agree that it is better to try to find ways to ameliorate the situation (and try to plan how we might deal with greater demands on fewer resources) than just think "we are all going to die" or more accurately "nevermind, they are all going to die".

"it's real, it's scary, lets solve it"

Himalaya, but this is the problem; that very few people think like this.
Certainly not enough to form a critical mass in a democracy.
And threads like this are a highly effective demonstration of democracy in operation ; everyone's opinion is equal.

Witness how we are dealing with this, relatively speaking, minor financial downturn. Everyone running round like headless chickens shouting "more growth, more growth" as though we were living in the Dark Ages in 2004 (or whenever it last was our economy was at an equivalent level).

So in 30 years time, we still won't be solving the real problems, everyone will be running round in circles shrieking "more growth, more growth, we haven't seen Dark Days as this since the hand-to-mouth existence of 2012".

Which is one of the reasons why I really hope that sensitivity to CO2 doubling is less than currently estimated.