Anthropogenic Planetary Climate Crisis: the existential collective action challenge to the survival of humanity -formerly- Climate Change: deny this?

T

titan

Member

Pakistan floods hit 33 million people in worst disaster in a decade, minister says​

CNN

Pakistan floods have affected more than 30 million people​

Al Jazeera English

Floods have caused major problems in the U.S. too.
But there are some ominous indications not as well publicized. For example the areas warming most rapidly are at Earth's normally frigid polls. It may not get as much publicity as these are low population areas. But the implications for climate, mean sea level, and other factors warrant concern.

What international body has viable authority for this. The U.N.? And what could the U.N. do, if melting Earth's polar ice caps raises global sea level, affecting millions that live in coastal cities around the globe?
 
Climate change deniers, a large group. Therefore likely there are multiple reasons. Some may simply not want to give up the comfort of driving their familiar Ford F150 pickup truck with its reliable V8 engine. Others may be sincere disbelievers. Meanwhile weather records are being broken around the world. Rivers & reservoirs are drying up in some places. Devastating storms wreak havoc elsewhere. Puerto Rico entirely lost commercial power. Reuters called Fiona, the storm that slammed Eastern Canada one of the worst in history.

"Oh ain't it awful!" isn't enough. Earth's poles, where much ice holds sea level stable, are warming faster than the rest of the planet. Many millions live in coastal cities around the world. If Earth's polar ice melts, those low-landers can expect a change of address. And due to scale, and time lag, it may already be too late to avoid some of the consequences.
Conservation, sharing the root word with conservative, starts at home, in the heart. Help save the planet. Be conservative, help save humanity. MAGA - pseudocon doesn't count. Putin's a bad guy, he threatens Ukraine. Want to see a bad guy threatening all humanity? If you drive a pickup truck with a V8 engine, look in the mirror. Conservatism starts at home. There's more to it than wearing a red hat.
 
I hope this isn't too wide of the mark.
NASA smashed a "vending machine sized" satellite into a small asteroid, an expensive experiment to test NASA's ability to deflect an Earthbound asteroid.
The extinction of the dinosaurs is the textbook example of the potential severity of the asteroid threat. We wouldn't want such asteroid bashing into DC, London, or Paris.

I mention this because anthropogenic climate change isn't the only existential threat Earthlings face. What sets anthropogenic climate change apart is, it's self-inflicted.

Meanwhile Atlantic antics persist in the news. Violent storms aren't a recent invention. But as climatologists predicted, the trend may be for increasing severity.
 
#FOXBusiness #HurricaneIan

Hurricane Ian tracker: Storm barrels towards Florida | 9/27/22​

Look out Florida.

Follow this global warming trend and Florida has some serious long term problems. It's not practical to build a dike sheath to protect the peninsula.
However there are some things that can be done. An obvious example, initial reports indicated all Puerto Rico had lost electric power. It's technologically possible instead of stringing these wires from exposed wooden poles, to locate the wires underground. That's expensive, in some cases over a million dollars per mile. Is it worth it?
 
unfortunately none of the foregoing proves climate change, it could be perfectly reasonably argued that it is simply a run of bad weather.

Just the other day I was reading a right wing page on which they were mocking the lack of forecasted increase in hurricanes this year
 
titan, the irony is our inadequate response has both short term (immediate), and long term consequences. mark's right about statistical anecdote. But that's misleading. It's not uncommon in the Northern hemisphere when it's unusually bitter cold in the Northern U.S. it may be correspondingly unseasonably warm in Siberia. The net global temperature continues to show stability. But mark's "none of the foregoing proves climate change," may mislead laymen. Events do not. Statistical trends do. mark posted "a right wing page on which they were mocking the lack of forecasted increase in hurricanes this year". Consider the source. Predictions have been made for decades, and the intervening years have both validated the predictions, and in some cases revealed even dire predictions to understate the severity.
 
the thing is by the time the evidence for climate change becomes undeniable it will probably be too late to do anything about it, but a heat wave or a flood or even a series of heat waves isnt "proof" and probably doesnt even amount to "evidence".
More convincing are facts like the ten warmest years on record occurred this century and the last decade was the warmest decade on record but even that doesnt amount to strong evidence because the accurate record doesnt go back very far
 
No doubt some laymen, MAGA Republicans among them, may be awaiting a single, simple, definitive indication proving climate change. But the evidence is mostly statistical trends, evidently unpersuasive to them. Doesn't mean you're wrong mark. But it does suggest if humanity saves itself it will be without their help.
 
"Global warming" is old news. But recent destructive weather events indicate the dire warnings climatologists have been providing may not have been dire enough.

Governments obviously have an obligatory leadership role. But the consequence of inaction is so dire, private industry has taken initiative preempting government strategy.

Commercial electric power providers have increased the proportion of renewable generated power of their total energy output. We're gradually wringing Carbon out of commercial power generation, a trend author Jeremy Rifkin observed in his book The Hydrogen Economy.
Ironically, generations ago vehement opponents of nuclear commercial power generation protested nuclear power due to environmental impact. In light of "global warming", nuke plant opponents have reversed their position, favoring nuclear commercial electric power generation, because nuclear power-plants are virtually Carbon neutral, unlike flagrant Carbon emitters like coal-fired power-plants.

Has humanity gotten it about right? Allowing standard attrition to purge polluting equipment from humanity's pollution landscape?

And even if highlanders survive the next few decades relatively unperturbed, what of the millions of lowlanders, whose homeland may be inundated due to global warming caused polar ice-cap melting raising sea level?
Earth is running out of vacant, unoccupied, habitable area.

What countries and cities will disappear due to rising sea levels?​

By Joe Phelan published March 27, 2022

Which countries will be most affected?​

First, let's look at the countries with the lowest elevations.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (opens in new tab) (UCS), the Maldives, made up of 1,200 small coral islands and home to around 540,000 people, is the flattest country on Earth, with an average elevation of just 3 feet (1 m) (opens in new tab). Should the Maldives experience sea level rise on the order of just 1.5 feet (45 cm), it will lose around 77% of its land area by 2100, according to the UCS.
Another country with an extremely low average elevation — around 6 feet (1.8 m) above sea level (opens in new tab) — is Kiribati. This small island in the heart of the Pacific, with a population of close to 120,000, could lose two-thirds of its land if sea levels rise by 3 feet.

Government and industry are engaged. Are you? What is your "Carbon footprint"? Do you think the generation of your grandchildren will be able to live a lifestyle unfettered by crisis level sacrifice?

The fate of humanity? No worries? Or a "nail-biter"?
 
The U.S. is no less dependent on national defense than before global warming. What sets this apart is it's in addition to the other perils we're already familiar with. We turn to Uncle Sam to prevent nuclear war, there isn't much individuals can do for that. Climate change is different. We need all the help we can get, including our own individual contributions. That can include dumping the gas guzzler, and either replacing it with a less polluting gasoline or diesel powered vehicle, or running an electric powered vehicle. We should remember, well meaning consumers may think they're sparing the environment by buying and driving a Toyota Prius. But if the electricity that charges the Prius is generated by burning coal, that Prius can pollute more per mile than a comparable gasoline powered car.

Heads up. Danger is everywhere. Panic won't help. Enjoy life. Be aware. Be responsible.
 
R #3
Thanks. I had a vague memory of it, but didn't find it. I'd like to merge them, but don't know how on the XenForo platform.
 
I figured it out R #13, but it merged them into the wrong thread title. I think it uses the earliest thread as the title source. So I edited the merged thread. "Live & learn."
 
In the past 300 years Scotland has been without snow 9 times
In the past 6 years Scotland has been without snow 4 times (this is one of those years)
 
Ah! So THAT'S why they call it "mean" temperature rise!

Just kiddin'.

Einstein groped for a GUT, grand unified theory, which I gather he hoped would unify our 3 separate and distinct laws of physics:
- Newton
- Einstein
- Heisenberg et al

Those of us most familiar w/ Newton may shy from quantum physics, where outcomes are expressed, predicted in probabilities. But a little acclamation to it and I'm not uncomfortable with anecdotal exceptions to the global mean trends of global warming. And a rock seawall I recall from childhood in the tidal lower Hudson river valley does seem to show about a 4" high water mark rise in the past half-century or so.
 
Einstein groped for a GUT, grand unified theory, which I gather he hoped would unify our 3 separate and distinct laws of physics:
- Newton
- Einstein
- Heisenberg et al
Click to expand...

That isnt what the grand unified theory is about.
GUT is about uniting the physics of 3 of the fundamental forces (strong weak electromagnetic) now expanded to include gravity and called The Theory of Everything "TOE"

Schrodinger takes his cat to the vet after a few minutes the vet emerges with a box and says "Mr Schrodinger I have good news!......and bad news"
 
By the way I simplified on the grounds that going further would take me well beyond where I an comfortable, "gauge theory" and beyond
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top