Is the flooding related to global warming?

[superstarheartbreaker]

thoughts please?

[ShadowOfTheDay]

I also think we have no control.... but it is a particularly British thing that we like to THINK we are in control...

we recycle our rubbish, put in low energy lightbulbs - we then fly abroad on our holidays pleased with ourselves that we are doing our bit....

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

I can see why you'd despair, Jaisalmer, but there's a difference between so called "committed change" (the stuff we're already going to see, because, as you say, it's like trying to turn an oil tanker on a sixpence) and the additional change we'll see if we keep adding CO2: explanation here. As you can see from the graph, it's the difference between an extra half a degree or so, which we might be able to adapt to, and several degrees which it will be very difficult to adapt to. So it is worth while trying to limit emissions, it's not as bad as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Getting back to the OP's question - how do you decide whether this event (or similar events) are due to anthropogenic climate change, there's also a thoughtful article on attribution on the Real Climate site. As you can see, OP, you're in good company - the editorial board of the journal Nature asked a similar question! (NB, the thing about the Real Climate site is that it collects the results of a lot of peer-reviewed literature in one place - it's not a random blog written by some single-issue nut in an attic somewhere).

[HesterShaw]

MoreBeta what's the destruction of Porthleven got to do with? Or collapsing promenades? Bad land management?

You sound very angry. I bet you're not as upset as people who have lost homes and livelihoods.

[HesterShaw]

And as for the "well we can't do anything anyway because of the Americans and the Chinese," what an awful, helpless, frustrating feeling it is.


As far as I was aware, this conversation started as a simple query.

[MoreBeta]

Get out of your cars, take public transport, don't fly off on holiday, grow your own food and wood fuel.

Are any of you really all going to do that? Are any of you really going to stop using electricity or using consumer goods and buying food in supermarkets?

No you are not. Not surprisingly.

Its all just propaganda to excuse what Government of all stripes want to do which is interfere in our lives and manipulate the economy and allocate resources to favoured constituencies. There are a heck of lot of much more serious issues that need tackling immediately than the unproven threat of climate change. Volcanoes and naturally burning underground coal seams emit more CO2 every year than mankind does and that has gone on for billions of years.

[MoreBeta]

*Hester it has got nothing to do with climate change. the sea has always encroached and destroyed man made structures. It is sheer arrogance to think we can control nature. The sea has enormous power. That has always been the case.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

The claim that volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans is simply factually wrong - anthropogenic emissions (buring fossil fuels etc.) exceed volcanic emissions by about 2 orders of magnitude (a factor of approx 100).
EOS paper here - pdf is downloadable without subscription.

[HesterShaw]

Thank you, I live 200 m from it. I spent Tuesday night anxiously watching it. I'm aware of its power.

[bunchoffives]

Do we really need a lot of scientific research and debate to tell us that if we continually pollute our planet, it will have an adverse effect?

If you breathe tar into your lungs they clog up and you get pneumonia/cancer. If you feed your children crap they grow up with health problems etc.

The Earth is one big organic eco-system and the too many human beings that live in it are unbalancing that system with their pollution.

Eventually the Earth will calm down back into balance - but not before the parasites that infect are eradicated.

One very simple thing we could all do in England is vote for the Green Party.

All the other parties are shite anyway and at least we know the green party would prioritise the environment. And I think Caroline whatshername sounded very sensible.

[UnknownGnome]

It can't help that all the natural floodplains are being built on. We've got one huge floodplain left near us. Guess what? An estate of 5000 houses has just been approved. The water has nowhere to go anymore. And then there's the craze to block-pave everywhere

[UnknownGnome]

Sorry, I see that's already been mentioned.

[firesidechat]

Apologies for not reading the whole thread before posting.

Hasn't there always been seasons of freakish weather though. There was the freakishly cold, snowy winter of 1963 and the freakishly hot summer of 1976.

Climate does change obviously. How much this is to do with human activity, I haven't a clue.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Fireside - there are plenty of links on this thread for you to read and learn more about how much humans contribute to climate change :)

Yes, there have always been extremes in weather, however climate change predicts that these extremes will occur more often - in the UK predictions are that our winters will trend to becoming wetter and our summers warmer.

[Jaisalmer]

Sorry Kitten I don't mean to sound so despairing but I've read avidly about climate change for a good 30 years and feel very passionately about it. Gaia the full works, I get so upset when I think about the destruction of the rainforests, all the animal extinctions, whole areas like the Maldives being threatened with eradication due to sea levels rising. The polar ice caps melting - I mean jeez it is so overwhelming.

BunchofFives I feel like you, we are a blip and will be eradicated by our own stupidity eventually and then the planet can go back to just being without us destroying it all but in the mean time a lot of people and animals are going to suffer tremendously.

I don't want to say do nothing but I do sometimes think that us doing 'our bit' as in recycling, being careful with diesel, turning the heating down etc is a bit like taking a dustpan and brush to an earthquake when you look over at the developing world. Of course they want what we have and why should we try and put them back in their box?

I am a bit like MoreBeta angry and cynical at what governments do or don't do. Why we can't harness more green energies I really don't know except for the fact that there isn't much money or many votes in it sadly.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I too feel angry about things but part of my nature is to never, ever give up. If we in the affluent west give up, what hope does the rest of the world have?

[HesterShaw]

BBC article today

The vast majority of scientists now think that climate change is being accelerated by human activity. It is the deniers who are seen as the cranks.

[RedToothBrush]

Arh the BBC say something is related to Global Warming therefore it must be true....

...You might want to read up on JUST how biased and unrepresentative of scientists the BBC actually are.

[HesterShaw]

You appear to think that is the only place I get my opinions from. It isn't.

[HesterShaw]

It does get very wearying when people who are concerned about pollution are branded as pitiful, gullible, lefty fools who believe everything they are told.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

Sources, please, Redtoothbrush - happy to have a read if you'll tell me where .

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

I would be very interested too :) Also I'd love to read evidence (rather than opinion) that contradicts climate change.

[tallwivglasses]

Interesting article here about how farming methods can affect flooding. There's also a conspiracy theory that EU and UK governments intended this to happen so that land can then be bought cheaply [shocked]

[tallwivglasses]

...or indeed

[inde]

Volcanoes and naturally burning underground coal seams emit more CO2 every year than mankind does and that has gone on for billions of years.

Those two thing together amount to no more than 2% of the amount of CO2 emitted by humans burning fossil fuels.
Nearly every climate scientist in the world believes that we causing the climate to change in a way that will cause significant problems in the future. I would rather believe them than nutty journalists like James Delingpole who has admitted himself that he hasn't read the mass of peer reviewed evidence that we are damaging our environment.