Global Warming Has Accelerated and Will Go On for Centuries

[lacktheknack]

I walk to work, don't own a car, hardly ever fly anywhere, buy my paper from responsible sourcing and recycle almost everything. And I usually use blankets or jumpers instead of heaters.

I do use a laptop for most of the day and I do use utilities, but I'm not in a position to change the entire energy industry, so I don't see why I shouldn't. I at least try to use greener energy companies. I do eat animal products - but animal produce is tiny compared to what the energy industry is contributing to Climate Change.

Congratulations, one-of-several-million! You've got it mostly right!

Also, <link=http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html>you'd be horrified.

<link=http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html>Right back at you. Okay, so maybe the word tiny was an exaggeration, but still, see the 14% methane part of that pie chart? That's not even entirely agricultural, since it includes waste management, coal mining and natural gas leaks. And by the second chart - Agriculture is at a total of 14%. Energy, Transport, Industry and Forestry (which are all items that I do actively try to combat with my lifestyle) contribute 75%.

Of course, this is all by weight.

Take the 17% of the 14% (total: 2.4% of all emissions is agricultural methane) and multiply by the fact that methane traps as much as 20x the amount of energy as carbon dioxide in a 100 year period (see: my first link) and suddenly agricultural methane accounts for nearly as much trapped solar energy as fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions.

That's scary and significant.

EDIT: Clarified.

This leads me to question how they put their charts together, btw.

 

[AgedGrunt]

"There is no standstill in global warming," -- pointing to some of the extreme climate events of 2013.

Skeptics point to a period of 15 years or so to make a dispute with climate models and they're dismissed. But one year of climate is apparently fine for science to say, "I told you so"?

The laws of physics are non-negotiable.

Implying all skeptics reject the science. The issue, at any serious level of debate (which is being systemically shut down) is causation.

"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," he said, pointing to the destruction wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Right, in contrast to earth-induced climate change, in which we would expect... nicer weather?

Translation: our own models agree with what we think is happening. That's the settled science.

 

[tangoprime]

Let whatever happens happen, earth will sort itself out.

For those who don't know, we're currently in a phase called an "icehouse earth." Were it not for anthropogenic global warming, we were due for another glacial period to begin in as little as 50k years. Also, fun fact, Earth, at the moment, is colder than it has been for about 80% of its history. Historically, for most of its existence, it has been MUCH hotter on average than it is now.

Additionally, we make a huge deal about the ice caps as indicators of our affect (granted, to our society as it currently is, the sea level is a major concern, and granted, as mentioned, anthropogenic global warming shifting us towards a "greenhouse earth" is affecting them), permanent ice as in the ice caps is a pretty rare occurrence in the history of our planet, only being around for about 4% of our planet's history.

Earth was bound to either freeze over (snowball earth) or heat up (greenhouse earth) relative to our currently climate eventually, since our current climate that humanity has enjoyed is a pretty rare condition. We'll just have to do what our species has proven that we do best, adapt. In the long run, NO amount of riding your bike to work or taking shorter showers is going to stop earth's tumultuous climate history of hot and cold cycles from marching on, as we'd be just nudging it one way or the other away from extremely brief happy "medium."

 

[the doom cannon]

Yes, it has accelerated. There won't be any "disastrous" consequences. Some fish will migrate and/or die off, same with some animal species. People buying multimillion dollar beach houses will find themselves underwater in a century or less, and people in KNOWN flood plains will also find themselves underwater more frequently. What about this is disastrous? The earth will not explode, we won't all get obliterated by an asteroid because of global warming. So much sensationalism

 

[thiosk]

OT: Hydrogen cars seem to be coming along decently. I'm not sure of the specifics, but they seem to be pretty viable alternatives to what we have today. And seeing how their only emission is water, they'd be fantastic for the environment as well.

I disagree.
While there is extensive research devoted to direct solar splitting of water at earth-abundant catalyst surfaces, there is no hope for large-scale solar hydrogen generation for the consumer market at the current time. See work by N. Lewis at CalTech for information relating to large scale water splitting. Electrochemical hydrolysis of water for, powered by either solar or any other electrical source, is not feasible as it requires too much platinum\palladium catalyst to serve as the reaction surface area.

At the present time, industrial production of hydrogen gas occurs via steam reforming, which is a high temperature reaction between water and methane, resulting in hydrogen and CO2. So you use energy to heat the mix, and it is still generating CO2 1:1 per molecule hydrogen produced. It is more reasonable to directly burn the methane. Hydrogen fuel cells can do ok, but I just don't see it as viable, and research on hydrogen has collapsed with the end of the Bush administration.

Batteries/electrical and charging supplementation via solar is much more likely to achieve mass market success and is likely a better environmental option than a hydrogen infrastructure.

Note: If the earth abundant catalyst problem for direct water splitting via photon absorption IS truly solved, the calculus may change.

 

[Avaholic03]

Except that we are the most intelligent species we know of, by far. We have a huge amount of potential and to think that this,today, is the peak of humanity, and it's downhill from here is a sad thought, wouldn't you agree?

Not "by far". We can't accurately gauge how intelligent and/or self-aware other species are, so saying we are "by far" more intelligent is a pretty silly and arrogant statement to make.

Also, I don't remember saying this would be the peak of humanity. In fact I remember saying we have no idea how things will be affected. For all we know, the rapidly changing climate will force accelerated evolution and in a few thousand years time we will view the current level of humanity the same way current humanity views chimps.

In the long run, humanity really isn't any more or less important than the millions of other species that have come before, during and after.

How the fuck can you say something like this with a straight face? We're mortal so it's OK if we all die? No, it's not OK. Don't pretend that it is. Your continued existence proves that you don't actually believe that. Why didn't you commit suicide yet if you truly believe that? We may not be important in the "grand scheme of things" but the grand scheme of things can go fuck itself. The grand scheme of things is irrelevant for us just like we're irrelevant for it. We're pretty important to ourselves because we're fuckin' alive and there is NOTHING wrong with that.

Wow, I don't really know how you could have misinterpreted my post any more blatantly. Never did I say or even imply that mass extinction was fine by me. What I was getting at is that homo sapiens are yet another in a multitude of species in the history of this earth. Our time here will end eventually...either by extinction or by evolution to another species. That much is inevitable. So, blowing this single threat to our existence so out of proportion is kind of ridiculous, especially because as I said, we don't understand all the affects climate change will have on us and other species. Believing that we do know what will happen is the kind of typical human arrogance and ignorance that this planet would probably be better off without.

 

[FPLOON]

Uh... Can this also mean that each new generation would be able to adapt more to the ever-changing climate?

Nonetheless, once other alien species from other distant planets come try to take us over, they would be stopped by the power of intense heat and pending dryness!

 

[O maestre]

climate change is undeniable it has been getting warmer since the ice age... duh. the thing I still don't know is how much of an influence mankind has had on this natural process, the earth has gone through several cycles of global warming and cooling throughput it's history.

I know that man can influence the environment greatly, like the whole aerosol crisis, which was actually solved by the UN back when they did stuff without hesitation.

 

[Britishfan]

I said this the better part of ten years ago, but apparently no one was listening to me so I'm going to have to say it again. We are not going to stop climate change; everything we do is going to be too little too late. What we can do is start to plan for it.

In my country "plan for it" means a complete overhaul of flood defence. Unfortunately this won't happen because to many civil servants need to cover their arse (see river dredging). Also we could start planting some vineyards, maybe some olives.

captcha: tea leaf. yes maybe them to.

 

[SexyGarfield]

I'm really not seeing the problem with large climate change/global warming. Well, to be more accurate, I really can't see why people keep kicking up a fuss over it. We'll either adapt to it like everything else on Earth will, or we'll die. Once that's done, the Earth will normalize and something vaguely like us may evolve once more, or something will evolve to take our place as the apex species in the warmer and wetter climate (woo, dinosaurs making a comeback!).

It's really not something to be overly worried about.

Yeah I mean it's just the future of our race, thousands of years of progress, shaping the world around use in a way that no other observed species has ever done, thousands of years of unmatched culture and knowledge. Why would we continue that trend of shaping our enviroment when it clearly isn't working out for us? I can see where you're coming from, we're just a grain of sand on the beach of this universe, philosophy, insight, deep stuff man.

All sarcasm aside I can't understand the nihilism of a stance like that, if all human (or all life as we would take a lot down with us) life is meaningless how can any human life or social construct hold moral/ethical weight? I can kinda understand the fuck it I've got mine let the future deal with this biz, but what your saying is down right unfathomable to me.

And then there's the recent data suggesting that Antarctica is the coldest it's ever been, when it came close to matching a 2010 record of -135.8 Fahrenheit....in July, no less (IIRC it fell 0.5F short of matching the record).

In Antarctica July is the dead of winter, southern hemisphere and all that jazz.

As for the rest of your post I have not really looked into the polar vortex that much as it didn't effect California. However, my state is going through one of the worst droughts since they started keeping records on that stuff. There is a reason most people that care about the subject nowadays have dropped the term global warming and shifted to the term climate change, global warming leads it's self to strawman arguments. The theory behind "global warming" is that there is an overall or "global" trend of warming, because of that weather patterns change and sea level rises. Just because there is an intense snow storm in a region from a long known phenomenon (see polar vortex [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex], it's been around for a while) doesn't change 30+ years of documenting polar melt an rising tide.

 

[Agayek]

All sarcasm aside I can't understand the nihilism of a stance like that, if all human (or all life as we would take a lot down with us) life is meaningless how can any human life or social construct hold moral/ethical weight? I can kinda understand the fuck it I've got mine let the future deal with this biz, but what your saying is down right unfathomable to me.

The short answer: It doesn't.

The long answer: The universe gives no fucks about our opinions or accomplishments. It will continue on with or without us, and we will never be able to affect more than the smallest fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the universe in any meaningful way. Our lives and deaths mean nothing to the sheer totality that is the universe.

That said, we are sapient, and by virtue of that we are not utterly meaningless. Life has weight and meaning because we give it weight and meaning. We like to think that we are important or meaningful, and so, to us, we are important and meaningful. We impose our meaning on the world around us and in doing so, create meaning. And that's enough for pretty much everyone, myself included.

That's all kinda irrelevant to my original post though, which had a very simple point. Namely, we all die eventually. Why kick up a fuss about this particular method? We'll either all die to it, or we'll figure our shit out and then die to something else further down the line. Global warming and climate change are vague and long-term threats, along similar lines as "the heat death of the universe". There's always something like that looming over the horizon, and therefore little reason to worry unduly about the coming one. When it becomes a problem, we'll either die or solve it and then start freaking out about the next looming and implacably advancing problem.

It's both pointless and silly to worry about it because, like many things in life, worrying about does nothing but detract the meaning and weight from your own life.

 

[Silvanus]

So you're willing to ride along on the carbon train until you're specifically forced to stop?

That's... that's like a pastor saying that gays should be allowed to be married, but then refusing to do ceremonies for them until the law is passed in that forces him to do so.

Uhrm... what? No.

I'm willing to take part in certain things for which, as it currently stands, there are few or no good alternatives. Receiving my utilities from utilities companies is an example of this, because I'm not going to build a hydro-electric dam in my back garden (it's not large enough, among other reasons).

However, changing business regulation will have a larger impact by a margin of thousands of percent. The behaviour of a business is far more important than the behaviour of an individual. So, if an environmentalist takes a plane, but also significantly influences policy, they've had a net positive impact, and sneering becomes fairly meaningless.

Skeptics point to a period of 15 years or so to make a dispute with climate models and they're dismissed. But one year of climate is apparently fine for science to say, "I told you so"?

2013 is far from the only year to feature erratic or extreme weather patterns.

As for that 15-year period, that is truly insignificant when it's looked at in context [http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11639/dn11639-2_808.jpg]. See that miniscule little plateau at the far right, dwarfed by the larger trend? That's the period sceptics point to. You'll notice that there have been other such tiny, temporary plateaus over the last hundred years or so, which haven't indicated the end of the trend whatsoever.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

While i do believe it's real, i've yet to see any impact where i live in NY state.. in fact it seems colder, not warmer. it's spring and right was a high of 24 degrees today where i live.. where's this warmer i keep hearing about?

 

[SexyGarfield]

Snip

It's nice to know someone can channel the will of the universe to let us know how it feels, frankly I think it was being underrepresented. And your argument of why care about an oncoming train when we will eventually die of old age is a really strong selling point for your views.

 

[The_Darkness]

<link=http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html>Right back at you. Okay, so maybe the word tiny was an exaggeration, but still, see the 14% methane part of that pie chart? That's not even entirely agricultural, since it includes waste management, coal mining and natural gas leaks. And by the second chart - Agriculture is at a total of 14%. Energy, Transport, Industry and Forestry (which are all items that I do actively try to combat with my lifestyle) contribute 75%.

Of course, this is all by weight.

Take the 17% of the 14% (total: 2.4% of all emissions is agricultural methane) and multiply by the fact that methane traps as much as 20x the amount of energy as carbon dioxide in a 100 year period (see: my first link) and suddenly agricultural methane accounts for nearly as much trapped solar energy as fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions.

That's scary and significant.

Hmm... Okay, point taken. <link=http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/2326.html>I found this link a to be fairly useful perspective on Agriculture, although I have no idea on where they got their figures. Looks like beef is the main offender - poultry barely registers.

So on the plus side, I do eat poultry more often than beef. On the downside... beef is probably about one meal a week. Damn. Might put some work into reducing that...

 

[ecoho]

ok global warming is a thing, its real, and it will effect everyone. That said all we humans have done is accelerated the process by ,I believe the last figure thrown out was 100 thousand years. This has happened many times in the past and will happen again and again over our planets life. Now should we start preparing for what's to come now? most defiantly. Should we try to fix it? maybe if we can prepare at the same time.

Now just want to share why I think most people say its a myth and why people don't seem to care.

1. the idiots that say "we are killing the earth!" we are not, we cant, and to think we could with anything short of just destroying the whole dam thing by blowing it up deathstar style is foolish.
2. people calling for us to dismantle our current energy structure to use alternatives that are still in the infancy. Now to clarify we should and infact are looking at new energy sources to stop our adding to global warming, but they are far from perfect and many wont show any progress for another 20 or so years not the best thing to just switch to.

 

[HalfTangible]

*sigh*

The world warms up like this all the time. Look at a chart of global temperatures for the last 50 million years instead of the last century and you'll see that there's nothing unusual about the current cycle of global warming. Hell, most species on this planet got their start at temperatures much higher than this, and we just (the geological equivalent of two minutes ago) came out of an ice age. It'd be worrying if we WEREN'T warming.

Furthermore, ignoring the sheer hubris needed to declare humans as the biggest factor in the entire biosphere affecting global temperature, every solution proposed for global warming is either ludicrously expensive and ineffective (see: carbon tax) will probably happen anyway, since it's a good idea for other reasons too (see: fusion) or is not ready for primetime and/or impossible to force (see: the adoption of solar energy).

I'm more worried that the planet will enter a cycle of global cooling (and not even about that, really) Sure, if the world warms up life will be harder, but at least there will still be food.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

oil is truthly the devil's excrement