World Meteorological Organization: Carbon Dioxide hits 400ppm, 'Time is running out'

[SlyReaper]

Its not even a problem for humans, just some of them and their living standards etc...

More than living standards. Climate change will kill people. Temperatures don't have to rise very far to generate devastating storms with greater power and frequency. Flooded lands in already impoverished regions will lead to famine and disease. And still, much of the world lives in denial, because the people who will be worst affected by it aren't the ones running factories and power plants.

But don't get too comfortable with the thought that your wealth will protect you, that you can afford a few hikes in the prices of your consumables. When vast regions of land become uninhabitable due to regular flooding and storm surges from the sea, where do you think the occupants of that land are going to go? It's going to be a problem for the entire world.

Way I see it, we need to come up with a way to generate electricity without burning dead plants and animals. It can be done - nuclear power, renewables. The first one everyone panics about because it's the N word, the latter everyone sneers at because it's "unreliable" and apparently the human race has no means to store energy...

 

[FTM]

bottom line is it makes no difference what we do..we could be the most carbon neutral country on the world

but as long as other growing economies like india and china keep on pumping the stuff out we will have no effect

 

[SlyReaper]

bottom line is it makes no difference what we do..we could be the most carbon neutral country on the world

but as long as other growing economies like india and china keep on pumping the stuff out we will have no effect

And while every other country holds the same attitude, nothing will change.

 

[V4NT0M]

Actual megalolz.

 

[badcompany]

Green taxes making people rich and stupid people happy.

 

[Amp34]

I am all for progression I said this.

Slight tangent. But it's never that easy. To create these renewable energy resources we need to first dig, refine, manufacture, transport, a whole range of materials. Mainly oil. Nothing else will get the job done.

But yes. Fundamentally, we do need to change. And the various ripple effect from making the switch one day will be unimaginable.

I agree there, it's why I also don't agree with some of the most ardent renewable fans. There is no way we are going to be able to replace carbon fuelled power entirely in 10 or even 20 years. It will have to be changed gradually with gas (IMO) taking up the slack between coal and fully renewable. We should be increasing the cost of carbon significantly and pouring it not just into renewable subsidies (which are having the desired affect of reducing renewable costs) but also into carbon sequestration.

We also need to make sure we use less energy and other resources in the first place. Going back to the original point I made, the best way to do that is to reduce our population to a more manageable level. It's all very well proclaiming renewables as the cure but so far many of the suggestions from so called environmentalists involve flooding half of Norway's fjords (not sure anyone has asked Norway yet...?) And covering the oh so stable north Africa in solar panels. IMO we should be pushing through legislation forcing builders to install solar as standard on all roofs (where practical). That in itself would help reduce home useage significantly. At the moment people have to spend reasonable sums to do it afterwards and only do half the roof.

Nah I didn't you're right. But I guessed that was what it was getting at.

I don't think overcrowding / overpopulating will be a problem, that's just my view. I could be wrong.

Well It's worth reading...

Overcrowding is already a problem on many parts of the globe! Parts of Africa cannot sustain the populations that have exploded in the last 50 years. There is acute water shortages throughout Africa due to the increased use of it for irrigation to try and feed so many people. The desertification in places like Niger is not just destroying the environment for the other animals that live there, it's also affecting humans and their livestock (which coincidentally is what is causing the desertification in the first place). The livestock is killing any plant life that is left in the soil and increasing the Saharan expansion at a humungus pace. That's in Africa, but as I mentioned before Southern USA is having problems at the moment, parts of California and Texas are experiencing groundwater shortages as it's all been sucked up way to quickly to water nonviable agriculture in the desert (non viable if they weren't drilling wells and pumping it up). Heck, even the south east of England is starting to struggle with water, with all the signs suggesting it's only going to get worse with climate change.

That's before we get to Asia...

Much of it could potentially be sorted by future technology (for example desalination plants) but it's also a way of the earth telling us there are too many of us (or perhaps also true, too many of is in certain locations). While that's fine personally I can't stand the idea of living in a sci-fi like world where people don't see greenery on a daily basis and "the wild" is something we watch on TV in history programmes... That's before we think about our moral responsibility to the rest of the residents of earth...

 

[Castiel]

More than living standards. Climate change will kill people.

But it is not the end of Humanity like some are saying and your post illustrates the craziness of it all. For what you are stating to actually happen on a scale that will create the outcomes you say it will we are looking at a global disaster of Hollywood proportions...and that's simply not likely.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

Maybe the earth is alive and will bring on the apocalypse in virus form to control the human population

Maybe not virus but there could be other consequences. Complex societies do break down with the pressure placed on them, look at the Roman Empire.

At the end of the day there is no political motivation to do anything about it, look at the end of the green subsidy for renewals, even the end of the subsidy for improving home insulation which might cut fuel consumption and C02 emissions. Thats right, energy consumption won't be cut because there are votes in cutting green taxes on energy bills. Political short termism is the name of the game.

Going back to the original point I made, the best way to do that is to reduce our population to a more manageable level.

Again not going to happen, theres no votes in it. Who wants to be told they can have only 1 kid per family or suchlike? No politician is going to stick their neck out for that, the present government is trying to reduce the deficit and get a rein on public spending but look how they're vilified for that. People don't want to hear it.

 

[Heliospherez]

I wouldn't worry too much about it.....

A Virus will kill off the human race long before climate change does And if that doesn't get us - the lack of Energy / food will kill off a good few countries and races even before we have time to stop the global warming.

 

[D.P.]

No I welcome change. I look forward to scientists cracking wind/ solar / tidal generation. The possibilities will become endless and hopefully it will be in my lifetime.

I just don't like the fact that we have this

'MANKIND CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLE DEATHS'

'THE ANTARTICA IS MELTING AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DROWN'

'THE OZONE IS GOING TO LEAVE US AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO BURN'

Lets tax the **** out of everything and everyone in the name of saving the planet. It's all these knee-jerk reactions that make people lose interest and make credible people seem less credible.

I'm like let's all chill. Let the scientists do their thing, when it comes it comes.

Can I ask what political identity you think I identify with?

The alarmist headlines have nothing to do with the science but the media. Don't read the Daily Mail.

The scientists report the facts and predictions in accurate terminology without hysteria. But the fact remains, what we have already done to the environment will have severe consequences, and in fact already has.

Do you want the scientists to lie and pretend damaging warming won't occur? The facts are clear, strong action is paramount to limit the damage and constrain the effects. This isn't something good that can be easily rectified in the future. We are already at the point where lives are being lost, speciespecially are going extinct and infrastructure is being damaged and yet we are hardly doing anything goes about it because politics are too short sited.and don't care about generational timelines.

 

[joeyjojo]

Actually a vast majority of life on earth has gone extinct due to being unable to adapt quick enough to severe climate change (be that the result of natural changes of external extinction events).

"Most extinctions have occurred naturally, prior to Homo sapiens walking on Earth: it is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct."

A very good point. Something not many people know is that we're currently living through an extinction event - the sixth great extinction event to occur in Earth's history - and it's due to human activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

It's a very difficult thing to estimate, but the extinction rate has been estimated to be running at 10,000 times the "background rate", up to perhaps 140,000 species per year. A very sad fact.

 

[Amp34]

Maybe not virus but there could be other consequences. Complex societies do break down with the pressure placed on them, look at the Roman Empire.

At the end of the day there is no political motivation to do anything about it, look at the end of the green subsidy for renewals, even the end of the subsidy for improving home insulation which might cut fuel consumption and C02 emissions. Thats right, energy consumption won't be cut because there are votes in cutting green taxes on energy bills. Political short termism is the name of the game.



Again not going to happen, theres no votes in it. Who wants to be told they can have only 1 kid per family or suchlike? No politician is going to stick their neck out for that, the present government is trying to reduce the deficit and get a rein on public spending but look how they're vilified for that. People don't want to hear it.

So we just carry on our blinkered way until society collapses?

Unfortunately you're probably right. Hopefully we don't destroy the planet before we do wipe society out.

 

[Amp34]

One key idea in population studies is carrying capacity

Finally got round to reading the link. A very good organisation and a good link (unlikely anyone else has read it...)

Some defining points for others to read...

In the case of human populations, there is a large variation in per capita consumption levels between poor and affluent communities, so the basic definition of carrying capacity needs to be qualified and the given level of per capita consumption and waste generation needs to be taken into consideration. The carrying capacity of a given environment is much greater for people living at a subsistence level than it is for people with a typical Western European or North American lifestyle.

Another case where a human community is believed to have exceeded its carrying capacity is that of the Mayans. It appears that population pressure forced them to cultivate more and more marginal land, leading to a reduction of carrying capacity in their ecosystem. The forest land was not amenable to long-term intense cultivation, leading to topsoil erosion on a large scale. This in turn led to conflict between Mayan cities to compete for land which inevitably could not support the rising populations; conflict and gradual collapse of their society ensued4.

Alongside that is a good explanation of Biocapacity and the problem we have today.

http://populationmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/D21biocapacityecofootprint.pdf

If the ecological footprint of a human population exceeds the biocapacity of its environment, the situation is unsustainable. Disturbingly, worldwide the total human ecological footprint is 2.6 global hectares per capita (gha/cap) compared with a total worldwide bio-capacity of only 1.8 gha/cap (GFN Ecological Footprint Atlas 2009). This overshoot means that humanity is already using 1.4 times as many resources as are sustainably available, which is only possible for a short time; we are in effect already ‘living on the capital of the planet rather than its income’.

The overshoot for high income countries is much more extreme than the overall average. Whereas low income countries have a typical footprint of 1.0 gha/cap, the average for high income countries is 6.1, of which the UK is typical at 6.12. Thus we would already need 3.4 Planet Earths (ie 6.12/1.8) to support the total world population of 6.8 billion if everyone was to have typical UK living standards.

Basically it's saying the only hope we have of long term survival is to abandon our rich way of life and reduce our standard of living to that of many developing nations. That is if we stay at or above the current population.

And just as important

Though the footprinting approach explicitly accounts for different levels of per capita consumption, it doesn’t factor in the biocapacity needed for the preservation of other species – a clear moral problem that would concern many people and one with significant economic consequences for humanity. If capacity for other species is allowed for, we are in a situation of greater overshoot than the figures suggest.

But remember guys, it's ok because we've only cemented over an 8th of the UK. Plenty more space to tarmac over the rest!

 

[elmarko]

A very good point. Something not many people know is that we're currently living through an extinction event - the sixth great extinction event to occur in Earth's history - and it's due to human activity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

It's a very difficult thing to estimate, but the extinction rate has been estimated to be running at 10,000 times the "background rate", up to perhaps 140,000 species per year. A very sad fact.

Indeed.

A very interesting point on that page (further lending evidence at least in theory towards the premise that humans have the capacity to enact staggeringly quick climate change) - regarding megafauna.

"Effect on methane emissions

Large populations of megaherbivores have the potential to contribute greatly to the atmospheric concentration of methane, which is an important greenhouse gas. Modern ruminant herbivores produce methane as a byproduct of foregut fermentation in digestion, and release it through belching. Today, around 20% of annual methane emissions come from livestock methane release. In the Mesozoic, it has been estimated that sauropods could have emitted 520 million tons of methane to the atmosphere annually, contributing to the warmer climate of the time (up to 10 C warmer than at present).

This large emission follows from the enormous estimated biomass of sauropods, and because methane production of individual herbivores is believed to be almost proportional to their mass.

Recent studies have indicated that the extinction of megafaunal herbivores may have caused a reduction in atmospheric methane. This hypothesis is relatively new.

One study examined the methane emissions from the bison that occupied the Great Plains of North America before contact with European settlers. The study estimated that the removal of the bison caused a decrease of as much as 2.2 million tons per year.

Another study examined the change in the methane concentration in the atmosphere at the end of the Pleistocene epoch after the extinction of megafauna in the Americas. After early humans migrated to the Americas about 13,000 BP, their hunting and other associated ecological impacts led to the extinction of many megafaunal species there. Calculations suggest that this extinction decreased methane production by about 9.6 million tons per year. This suggests that the absence of megafaunal methane emissions may have contributed to the abrupt climatic cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas.

The decrease in atmospheric methane that occurred at that time, as recorded in ice cores, was 2-4 times more rapid than any other decrease in the last half million years, suggesting that an unusual mechanism was at work."

 

[pitchfork]

I gave up giving a damn about the environment a while ago, they'll bitch and bitch and bitch because I drive a classic car which dumps gobs of fuel into the engine through a carburettor and doesn't have a catalytic converter.

But that big old factory in china releasing toxic chemicals "No, no, we don't need emissions regulations there"

I believe man is having a dramatic effect on the planet - whether you believe in climate change or not is irrelevant because pollution is indisputable, as is for example landfill running out - for that reason I don't mind recycling and being less wasteful (and quite aside from that I believe modern society to be very wasteful indeed).

But I figure why the hell should I be the target or many an eco tax and campaign?

In the words of Sean Lock "It's like showing up to an earthquake with a dustpan and brush"

 

[joeyjojo]

^ This is such a fascinating outlook pitchfork. You know we're having a dramatic effect, you know wastefully spending resources (classic car) is a big part of that, and yet you "gave up giving a damn about the environment".

How did people get so blasé about climate change? We're talking about the fate of every living thing on Earth, the only place in the universe that we know life exists, and you "gave up a while ago"?

Mind boggling.

You're basically betting the ENTIRE EARTH on "it won't be as bad as they say".

 

[Amp34]

I gave up giving a damn about the environment a while ago, they'll bitch and bitch and bitch because I drive a classic car which dumps gobs of fuel into the engine through a carburettor and doesn't have a catalytic converter.

But that big old factory in china releasing toxic chemicals "No, no, we don't need emissions regulations there"

I believe man is having a dramatic effect on the planet - whether you believe in climate change or not is irrelevant because pollution is indisputable, as is for example landfill running out - for that reason I don't mind recycling and being less wasteful (and quite aside from that I believe modern society to be very wasteful indeed).

But I figure why the hell should I be the target or many an eco tax and campaign?

In the words of Sean Lock "It's like showing up to an earthquake with a dustpan and brush"

Perhaps if you actually knew whatever was going on you would change your mind...

For example China is cracking down heavily on polluting industries. They have had limits for several years and are currently going for it big time. They are in the process of releasing drones to monitor factories for breaking emissions laws.

China dumps out so much becuasr it has a billion people and a huge manufacturing base to provide the rest of the world with goods. The UK has basically exported our carbon emissions to China.

The countries you really should be complaining about are the US and Australia, Australia being the highest emitter per person in the world. In the other hand if the world had a population density of Australia we probably wouldn't be in this mess in the first place...

 

[ChroniC]

^ This is such a fascinating outlook pitchfork. You know we're having a dramatic effect, you know wastefully spending resources (classic car) is a big part of that, and yet you "gave up giving a damn about the environment".

How did people get so blasé about climate change? We're talking about the fate of every living thing on Earth, the only place in the universe that we know life exists, and you "gave up a while ago"?

Mind boggling.

You're basically betting the ENTIRE EARTH on "it won't be as bad as they say".

I don't think he is. His example is pretty clear and concise.
You full well know he is right too, the person and people to blame and to show the first and biggest change should be the people who are causing the worst pollution. You cannot expect anyone to follow you if you don't lead by example.

 

[wilber]

No I welcome change. I look forward to scientists cracking wind/ solar / tidal generation. The possibilities will become endless and hopefully it will be in my lifetime.

I just don't like the fact that we have this

'MANKIND CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE HORRIBLE DEATHS'

'THE ANTARTICA IS MELTING AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DROWN'

'THE OZONE IS GOING TO LEAVE US AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO BURN'

Lets tax the **** out of everything and everyone in the name of saving the planet. It's all these knee-jerk reactions that make people lose interest and make credible people seem less credible.

I'm like let's all chill. Let the scientists do their thing, when it comes it comes.

Can I ask what political identity you think I identify with?

So basically you are looking forward to technological progress with renewable energy generation but you do not want to pay for it. That's how the above reads.

 

[Castiel]

^ This is such a fascinating outlook pitchfork. You know we're having a dramatic effect, you know wastefully spending resources (classic car) is a big part of that, and yet you "gave up giving a damn about the environment".

How did people get so blasé about climate change? We're talking about the fate of every living thing on Earth, the only place in the universe that we know life exists, and you "gave up a while ago"?

Mind boggling.

You're basically betting the ENTIRE EARTH on "it won't be as bad as they say".

Somehow I don't think his classic car is the main cause of climate change, or even a big part of it...alarmist nonsense. What his point states is that people in power ignore the real polluters such as the huge chemical factories, mining operations, new coal burning power stations, air travel, deforestation, intensive unsustainable farming and so on, instead focusing on the private individual and his classic car he probably drives once a week...and which has little discernable impact compared to corporate and industrial polluters.

And we are not really talking about the destruction of life on Earth and you know it, and if you don't then I feel sorry for you. Betting on the a Entire Earth just so he can drive a classic car...haha!!! The mind does boggle, just not how you think it does!

By owning that classic car he is probably more green than the person who buys a newer more fuel efficient car every three years anyway.