Incredibly sobering news: world set to warm by 2.9 - 3.4 degrees.

[chickychickyparmparm]

www.newscientist.com/article/2111263-world-is-set-to-warm-3-4c-by-2100-even-with-paris-climate-deal

:( When are we going to wake up to this? What is the UK doing?

“If we don’t start taking additional action now ... we will grieve over the avoidable human tragedy,” said Solheim.

This planet has warmed up and cooled down by itself for hundreds of millions of years and will continue to do so, which geological evidence of previous tropical and ice age climates in this country clearly demonstrates. Why should it stop now?

Dunno about where you are OP but it's freezing cold here

Portia weather =/= climate.

Rorty think you're on the wrong side of history there!

Agreed. It's frightening - and we're not even at the "danger" 2 degree temperature point.

Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary about climate change is now free on youtube... well worth a watch.

www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/9-takeaways-from-leos-climate-change-doc

Rorty well, I'm sure you know better than the climate scientists, thanks for that.

Well it's unlikely any of us will be here in 80 years so will have to agree to disagree. I'm sure the scientists will continue to support man made climate change, it's how they continue to get their slice of the multi-billion dollar funds made available by various governments.

Ice age? Dinosaurs? The world is always evolving. Yes it's scary and sad but we would be silly to think it's always going to be as it is now.

Weather= climate
Don't be so patronising

Sorry Portia, but at the risk of sounding patronising too it's really not the same thing.

www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html

It's sobering and frightening news, people are already suffering the effects of climate change all around the world. Sadly there are a lot of climate change deniers in positions of power which means too little will be done too late.

The impact is going to be felt way before 2100, but no one's interested in climate change on MN, unfortunately. I don't think people really know about it or understand it.

It's terrifying. But I don't know what I can do to make a difference. I look at my DD and wonder what sort of place her children and grandchildren will live in.

It will be a different world, talulah, but there's still hope we can change. Renewables just overtook coal, for example. Driverless cars are about to explode, and they'll mostly be electric. Lots of small changes being made that hopefully will amount to a big change.

I'm sure the scientists will continue to support man made climate change, it's how they continue to get their slice of the multi-billion dollar funds made available by various governments

^^ This

University of East Anglia, anyone ... ??

Yes, the legions of corrupt scientists, perhaps we'd better stick with Big Oil, they're infinitely better!

Bit of a straw man argument isn't it, chicky? For all the ghastly things they do, at least the major oil companies are quite open about going where the money leads

I used to expect better from supposedly independent scientists, but experience suggests I was perhaps a bit naive; it was only later that I learned to ask who was funding research and what their agenda was likely to be, rather than just accept findings at face value

Yes.
And we're thinking of a huge air traffic expansion.

Puzzledandpissedoff
I used to expect better from supposedly independent scientists, but experience suggests I was perhaps a bit naive; it was only later that I learned to ask who was funding research and what their agenda was likely to be, rather than just accept findings at face value

Absolutely.

Have a google for the Maunder minimum and Dalton for sunspot changes and the "little ice age". That thar fickle Sun has got a lot more to do with the weather then most would think!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum

and

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%B6rer_Minimum

Weather: “the state of the air and atmosphere at a particular time and place : the temperature and other outside conditions (such as rain, cloudiness, etc.) at a particular time and place”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weather

Climate: “the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation”
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/climate

I used to expect better from supposedly independent scientists, but experience suggests I was perhaps a bit naive; it was only later that I learned to ask who was funding research and what their agenda was likely to be, rather than just accept findings at face value

Would you care to give some specific examples?

The alleged underlying "agenda" in such arguments generally boils down to the idea of a secret conspiracy to introduce a more socialist economic and political system. Yet inequality and poverty are more than adequate ideas to support this as it is. And climate change means that many poorer people also need to be less wasteful. A plan for a more equal society where fossil fuel use, resource depletion and climate change was not an issue would look very different to one where almost everybody in a country like this one needs to cut down: cars and unlimited luxury stuff for all. Just about everyone would find it more fun.

Justaboy, I rather think the climate scientists have already done more than just google for things like that.

Try these links instead:
www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html
www.nature.com/nclimate/index.html
journals.ametsoc.org/toc/atsc/current
etc etc etc

I know you will be instantly suspicious, because of the idea that anyone sufficiently well funded to do the job is too corrupt to do the job, but honestly, anyone in the field has already heard of the ice ages, dinosaurs, sunspots etc and is doing their damnedest to distinguish one factor from the others.

I am at the climate change deniers here. WTAF. Ignoring scientific fact for what? So you don't feel so guilty about whatever petrol guzzler you drive!

Oops, much as I approve of Nature, the second link was meant to be
climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

This planet has warmed up and cooled down by itself for hundreds of millions of years and will continue to do so, which geological evidence of previous tropical and ice age climates in this country clearly demonstrates. Why should it stop now?

Indeed it has. However:

1. Complex human civilisation emerged and existed only within the last ten thousand years, a period when global climates have been more stable than average. Relative climate stability enabled agriculture, which in turn made it possible for specialisation, written records and most modern knowledge, thought and technologies to emerge, and the current large populations. All of which has accelerated markedly in the last 200 years since the industrial revolution and the use of fossil fuels.

Climate instability will make it more difficult for food to be grown in areas where humanity is accustomed to growing it , without opening up enough other areas in return. Changing weather patterns will be less conducive to the good and reliable harvests Europeans and North Americans are accustomed to. You can engineer crops to some extent, but to do without any rain for years on end, or for seeds not to be washed away by floods and torrential rain, isn't possible.

Some humans will survive that sort of thing, of course, they are a very resilient species. So if you're laid-back on that larger scale, fine, I've no argument with that. Humanity as a species has survived all kinds of natural disasters and epidemics, although the process wasn't exactly fun for those caught up in it.

1. Speed of warming is almost unprecedented in the archaeological record. It does not give enough time for ecosystems and animals to adapt and move their ranges, let alone when populations are already stressed and diminished by human encroachment and hunting and looking like one of the great extinctions of the planet's history even before it's got that much warmer. The combination of species fragility plus the rapid warming can look like a recipe for something similar to the Permian extinction, the biggest ever.

There does tend to be some division anyway, between whether people view other species and nature as an intrinsic value in and for themselves or simply as complex systems which enable human survival in ways that may not be immediately apparent, but from either angle, it doesn't look good.