Climate change

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Stephen hawking says that if the polar ice caps melt (I think this means fully melt) then the resultant release of co2 would increase the climate to 250 degrees Celsius.

I am assuming this must be true. It was in his book, brief answers to the big questions, but the quote does not reference how this has been calculated, not what paper the fact is drawn from.

I had no idea that if the ice caps totally melt, the world would be entirely uninhabitable and basically dead. I feel like this needs to be more known about? It's the way he casually writes it.

Thank you for the info but honestly it’s probably all a bit beyond me. You seem to have a better grasp than I.

The planet has been hotter than now. It has been colder than now. What is not on dispute is that this time, its got hotter because of people and people can and need to sort it out if we are to continue as a species.

Plant more trees.🌲🌳🌴🌵

Yes, this. And the fact it has been as hot as now before during human civilisation and 7C hotter than now with the dinosaurs (and much other animal and plant life) running amok, this fact isn’t to create apathy, it is to counter the climate doomists saying that another 0.4C and its game over, we all die, the planet dies etc.

We can do this. It is not too late.

360 million years ago there was around 10x the concentration of CO2 in the air. Plant life thrived. No mammals, mainly amphibians.

Those ancient forests of the Carboniferous period absorbed huge amounts of CO2. As the plants decayed they turned into peat, then lignite, then coal, permanently storing that excess carbon under ground.

At the end of the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago CO2 levels were similar to pre-industrial levels. Over the last 800 thousand years CO2 concentrations have occupied a fluctuating range of 180-280ppm - up until the pre-industrial era.

Then we cranked it up - we industrialised. And dug up a lot of that coal, and burned it. This released that 300+ million year old CO2 back into the atmosphere.

Now CO2 is up over 418ppm in the course of a few years.

We need to stop burning fossil fuels now. No more oil wells, no more coal mines. More renewables including tons of onshore wind to help us cope until we find a better clean energy source. It’s so clear what we need to do.

We can plant trees and all that in addition, but without ending fossil fuels it will barely make a dent.

I remember as a child lying on the grass, staring into the sky and thinking about the enormity of space and time. I remember thinking that the dinosaurs looked up at the same sun and moon and stars, feeling so small and insignificant in the universe and yet a part of something uniquely special and enduring.
I felt special, privileged to be a part of our miraculous world and its grand adventure, used to wonder what would be learned from my bones when they were dug up as fossils in a thousand years’ time.

And now I just despair. We are destroying our beautiful planet. We are the bad guys in this story, the world is quite literally burning, the coral reefs, the jungles, the African savannah, the pilar ice caps, all the beautiful habitats I poured over in my children’s encyclopedia are disappearing and the birds and animals, evolved over millennia, are being snuffed out.

I don’t feel special any more, I feel ashamed at our greed and selfishness and stupidity and arrogance.

I am not religious, but I was raised in the church, and I have to say that I’m starting feel as though ‘the fall’ was more of a prophecy than a history. We have brought destruction upon ourselves.

We need to stop burning fossil fuels now.
Yes to this

No more oil wells, no more coal mines.
No to this. We use oil and coal for many things other than burning them. Oil is used in lubricants, medicines, fertiliser and cosmetics. Coal is necessary to produce steel and other metals, and is also used in pharmaceuticals.

The activists saying no more oil wells, no more coal mines don’t get this. This is akin to saying we can’t grow or use wood at all because burning wood is bad for the environment when wood also has many other important uses that do not involve burning it and for which we have no good substitute.

I know. I am not a JSO person, or a coral seeding person or a save the tigers person. I am glad that they exist and are doing those bits. I do the plant more trees bit.

I love trees. They're amazing.

I’m a bit confused by
”Yes to this” and “no”??