Warning signs of Gulfstream collapse

[Laughing]

huge assumptions that the impacts we are seeing today are based on 'natural cycles'. Yes there are many many variables, but the science of the impact of burning fossil fuels and deforestation, is well understood, undisputed. The argument from the deniers is that the planet is too big for anything we do to impact, but scientists have modelled why that isn't the case, many times. Regardless of cycles, we are impacting the planet, if over the next 50,000 years 'cyclical events' will extinct us, why speed it up to 20,000 years with our own stupidity?

I don't disagree with any of that BM, except for the deniers argument. I think the argument is more, it was bound to happen anyway. Which it probably was, but why speed up our extinction, is the counter argument.

In any event we are not far from extinction anyway, even without global warming, the planet cannot sustain the human race for much longer, we are like the aliens from independence day without interstellar travel.

We certainly are not doing enough to try and mitigate our impact on earth, that much is certainly true. There are only 2 species on earth, over a sustained period of time, that are continually increasing, some insects and man. This happens because insects are adaptable in the extreme and humans can adapt their environment to suite themselves. Humans have no natural process that culls the species to keep the biosphere in equilibrium.

An absolute certain argument for their being no god, at least not an omnipotent or omniscient one.

 

[Same_as_before]

It was something i thought to be true too, and it certainly sounds plausible. On investigation, turns out to be not quite right

Cheers, a fact I cannot waste my time on in the future.

 

[Laughing]

It was something i thought to be true too, and it certainly sounds plausible. On investigation, turns out to be not quite right

QI facts are great, except they aren't generally facts at all.

 

[Middlesbrough123]

I think there are better ways to make chsnges than to just push climate change . If we all lived the most efficient life style they’d certainly be far fewer jobs . everything we do is connected .

If we followed a proper diet then looked at the rubbish you’ve produced at the end of the week I think you’d find it would soo much less .

theres a lot of focus on electric cars being more efficient and cleaner , well I doubt very much owning a car each is efficient but reducing ownership probably is , what ever powers it .

 

[Laughing]

The single biggest change, by a long way, we can all do to effect climate change is have one less child.

 

[Andy_W]

Imagine if the channel freezes and the brown people can just walk over .

I can see Farage as John Snow, riding a horse atop the white cliffs waving a sword about.

edit, missed your second line, my thought process was almost identical, see below

What I originally wrote, without reading your second line.....

It'll be like Game of Thrones and the white walkers (to leavers), they'll portray Farage as John Snow

 

[Andy_W]

Not one of the subjects which I've read a lot about but doesn't the cycles of the world change over thousands and millions of years? The change we've had in the last 50-100 years is too rapid to be a natural cycle, which is one of the reasons why all the experts say we've caused this (as well as all the crap we pump into the air).

If it was a natural cycle we would have time to move people away from the coast, build better buildings, have better tech, make everyone "safe" so we can "manage the climate changes" etc. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have the time, which means to overcome this will mean an unreal amount of cost to sort out, using £ numbers bigger than anyone has ever seen. We're going to need some sort of unbelievable mankind changes soon, or a technological breakthrough unlike no other.

The problem is, when we, Europe and the USA were developing, we burned loads of crap because it was cheap. The USA are still doing it, so how can we ask China and India (and later Africa) to break the bank on green energy, when we did not do the same when we were growing, and the USA still isn't. We must all do it, but they will look at it as hypocritical. It's also likely the developing countries will still use fossil fuels to grow, as a developed country will give people a better standard of living overall (for those who survive), than if they didn't grow.

The good thing is the birth rate is down all over the planet, and we will have a cleanout soon when all the boomers are gone

 

[Laughing]

Not one of the subjects which I've read a lot about but doesn't the cycles of the world change over thousands and millions of years? The change we've had in the last 50-100 years is too rapid to be a natural cycle, which is one of the reasons why all the experts say we've caused this (as well as all the crap we pump into the air).

If it was a natural cycle we would have time to move people away from the coast, build better buildings, have better tech, make everyone "safe" so we can "manage the climate changes" etc. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have the time, which means to overcome this will mean an unreal amount of cost to sort out, using £ numbers bigger than anyone has ever seen. We're going to need some sort of unbelievable mankind changes soon, or a technological breakthrough unlike no other.

The problem is, when we, Europe and the USA were developing, we burned loads of crap because it was cheap. The USA are still doing it, so how can we ask China and India (and later Africa) to break the bank on green energy, when we did not do the same when we were growing, and the USA still isn't. We must all do it, but they will look at it as hypocritical. It's also likely the developing countries will still use fossil fuels to grow, as a developed country will give people a better standard of living overall (for those who survive), than if they didn't grow.

The good thing is the birth rate is down all over the planet, and we will have a cleanout soon when all the boomers are gone

Not sure that it is happening too fast to be honest. There has been about 17 glacial/interglacial cycles over the last 2.5 million years. The earth has been much hotter in the past than it is today.

The last glacial period lasted 25000 years
And was 100000 years ago, a heartbeat in geological terms. We may just be due another climate change event.

It is generally accepted that glacial periods last much longer than interglacial. Glacial periods last 10's of thousands of years with interglacial periods lasting only a few thousand years.

We are due a huge shift in climate.

We ain't helping matters but it is inevitable regardless of what we do. I suspect that is the deniers argument.

If we can delay it by a thousand years we will be living on another planet anyway.

 

[bear66]

Not sure that it is happening too fast to be honest. There has been about 17 glacial/interglacial cycles over the last 2.5 million years. The earth has been much hotter in the past than it is today.

The last glacial period lasted 25000 years
And was 100000 years ago, a heartbeat in geological terms. We may just be due another climate change event.

It is generally accepted that glacial periods last much longer than interglacial. Glacial periods last 10's of thousands of years with interglacial periods lasting only a few thousand years.

We are due a huge shift in climate.

We ain't helping matters but it is inevitable regardless of what we do. I suspect that is the deniers argument.

If we can delay it by a thousand years we will be living on another planet anyway.

 

[Laughing]

Is that inaccurate hairy one? I thought it was a well presented argument done from my, admittedly, poor memory.

Go on then whats wrong with it, go on, go on.... Hah gotcha.

 

[Soutra]

Not sure that it is happening too fast to be honest. There has been about 17 glacial/interglacial cycles over the last 2.5 million years. The earth has been much hotter in the past than it is today.

The last glacial period lasted 25000 years
And was 100000 years ago, a heartbeat in geological terms. We may just be due another climate change event.

It is generally accepted that glacial periods last much longer than interglacial. Glacial periods last 10's of thousands of years with interglacial periods lasting only a few thousand years.

We are due a huge shift in climate.

We ain't helping matters but it is inevitable regardless of what we do. I suspect that is the deniers argument.

If we can delay it by a thousand years we will be living on another planet anyway.

So if the world has been both much hotter, and much colder, than it is today why is Mankind being blamed for causing what in reality is a small blip in the temperature scale (compared to what has come before)? I'm not denying Mankind should be doing lots and lots more than it is to limit damage we are causing. But, presented with the full facts, most people would conclude that there are many more factors in play than just man burning fossil fuels and changing land use. It may be that, with a raft of eco measures we see the temperature increases slowing. Equally, they may not, and it's poorer people that are going to be paying the tab for this because they live in badly insulated, badly designed houses, and can't afford to buy heat pumps and electric cars (if they are indeed greener).

 

[bear66]

So if the world has been both much hotter, and much colder, than it is today why is Mankind being blamed for causing what in reality is a small blip in the temperature scale (compared to what has come before)? I'm not denying Mankind should be doing lots and lots more than it is to limit damage we are causing. But, presented with the full facts, most people would conclude that there are many more factors in play than just man burning fossil fuels and changing land use. It may be that, with a raft of eco measures we see the temperature increases slowing. Equally, they may not, and it's poorer people that are going to be paying the tab for this because they live in badly insulated, badly designed houses, and can't afford to buy heat pumps and electric cars (if they are indeed greener).

Look at data on the CO2 levels in the atmosphere compared with the last 800,000 years. We're at levels now that you'd have to go back 3 million years. And this is just atmospheric CO2 levels!


Atmospheric CO2 levels

 

[Andy_W]

So if the world has been both much hotter, and much colder, than it is today why is Mankind being blamed for causing what in reality is a small blip in the temperature scale (compared to what has come before)? I'm not denying Mankind should be doing lots and lots more than it is to limit damage we are causing. But, presented with the full facts, most people would conclude that there are many more factors in play than just man burning fossil fuels and changing land use. It may be that, with a raft of eco measures we see the temperature increases slowing. Equally, they may not, and it's poorer people that are going to be paying the tab for this because they live in badly insulated, badly designed houses, and can't afford to buy heat pumps and electric cars (if they are indeed greener).

Because the other changes happened over 4.5 billion years, we've been industrial for about 150 years and are already wrecking it.

We're basically doing in 150 years what normally might take 1,500, 15,000, 150,000 years or whatever. If it took longer, we could fix anything, we can't ina short space of time and 50 years is a short time to move half of the worlds population and start from scratch.

A lot of the other major (fast) changes were caused by asteroids, massive volcano's and had simple reasons what caused fast spikes or dips. The reason for our fast spike now, is us.

 

[skazza]

The single biggest change, by a long way, we can all do to effect climate change is have one less child.

I'll give my youngest up. He's being a right PITA at the moment.

 

[Laughing]

I'll give my youngest up. He's being a right PITA at the moment.

I wasnt suggesting we kill them after the fact... Hmmmm maybe...

 

[Redwurzel]

I suggest you re-asses the last 20 decades of data, the worlds weather has changed.

BM - I think you have misunderstood what I was trying to say.

My full paragrah read

I was told we had 100 months to change in 2009. I still have the card. The World overall did not change in the next 8 years. More cars, more planes, more coal fired power stations (China was opening 1 a month).

We (the World) had 100 months to change our levels of Carbon emissions and we the World did not reduce them an example was the increase of coal fired power stations, so we the World are going to have a global warming problem. I do believe humans releasing large amounts of carbon is a problem and has raised temperatures.

I have tried to help and only used a plane once in the last 15 years, cut down home energy usage by 25% and carbon from the car by 10%, I have also some green investments, but I am no saint and could do more such as getting rid of the car.

 

[Trug]

I read a book in 1975 called "Snowball Earth" predicting the failure of the gulf stream and its effects on civilisation.

 

[Redwurzel]

Not sure that it's true Redwurzel. I believe prevailing winds from the Eastern seaboard keeps Canada a bit warmer in winter than it would be without the gulf stream. Whilst it does head east just off the coast of Canada the wind does bring warmer air from the gulf stream over Canada.

I could have written the coast of Labrador and been more precise. When I studied geography A level I had to study North America and was surprised how cold the Labrador Coast was compared with say the UK in the Winter, which is roughly on the same latitude. I was told it was because we got the Gulf Stream and LC did not.

Possibly Newfoundland is more like the UK as ity gets part of the Gulf Stream, so its patchy in Eastern Canada.

 

[Laughing]

I could have written the coast of Labrador and been more precise. When I studied geography A level I had to study North America and was surprised how cold the Labrador Coast was compared with say the UK in the Winter, which is roughly on the same latitude. I was told it was because we got the Gulf Stream and LC did not.

Possibly Newfoundland is more like the UK as ity gets part of the Gulf Stream, so its patchy in Eastern Canada.

Oh your not wrong about the labrador Coast and we would be at least that cold.

Not sure how no gulf stream would effect Canada, I suspect make it cooler still.

Minus 35 degrees in winter is not that uncommon.

 

[Redwurzel]

There is a film with Pete Postlewaite in and he appears to be the last man on Earth in the North Atlantic living in a Tower. He actually watches the Gulf Stream change and sea level rise from his Tower. I can't remember the films name but that fiction may become reality in 20 years time.