I’m a bit of a tweeter. I know but there you are. I saw a really scary tweet, innocuous enough on the surface but it began “ After climate change is solved”.
So what I hear you say. It was on Twitter to start with and anyway what’s wrong with the statement.
Well let’s start with some basics.
Climate change is real. It is happening and will happen. It has happened before many times.
Anybody who denies this is a creationist. If it hadn’t happened then ice ages didn’t happen.
Hope that clears things up and gets the crap out the way.
Some climate scientists think that this particular climate change is being caused or exasperated by man pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and some don’t.
Looks like the debate is still open and ongoing. Well yes. 97% think man has something to do with it and 3% don’t. I suppose you could say the debate is still on going, sort of.
Of that 3% I have little doubt that some nay say because their bosses tell them to. Money talks. I have equally little doubt some say no because if you said white they’d say black. I also think some say no because they aren’t getting notoriety in following the consensus. Never doubt the strength of the human ego.
Within the 97% there is still some debate. The 2 main topics are
1 how much is us
2 how bad is it going to get.
There has been overall a warming of 0.8C CO2 has risen to 393ppm from a pre industrial level of 280ppm. Methane and Nitrous Oxide levels have also risen a little.
Eh? Is that it? What’s all the fuss about?
Well, CO2 levels during the last ice age were about 180ppm and the rise to 280ppm took us to the present climate. That’s right a 100ppm rise is the difference between growing plants to eat and 2 miles of ice where I live.
We’ve added 113ppm by burning fossil fuels mainly. Coal Oil and Gas. Basically carbon stored in the earth which we’ve dug up or drilled and are transferring to the atmosphere as fast as our little egos’ can come up with the means.
It gets better. We’re increasing the amount we pump up by roughly 3% per year. That’s 3% of the previous years total more every year.
We KNOW ( see above) that this is increasing CO2 in the atmosphere but we STILL increase year on year. Frankly that borders on idiocy.
Climate scientists studying this say that that figure looks likely to continue for a while yet. Intergovernmental agreements say they’ll address it but the target date keeps moving, currently to around 2050.
In other words every target is to be met beyond the franchise of current administrations.
The why on this is easy. To reduce emissions means to reduce the ability to make money in our oil dependant economy.
But wait a minute, say some. I don’t have a car, use public transport and shop locally on my bike. Well sorry but even the tyres on your bike have oil input.
To do anything is painful. Politicians don’t want to be blamed for giving the bad news never mind imposing the painful cuts.
That still doesn’t answer the question of how much is us. Ask a scientist. They’ll tell you they don’t know. That’s actually true. It’s incredibly difficult in an extremely complex system to portion out blame for events.. A scientist won’t commit to this because it can’t be backed up by quantifiable repeatable evidence. Fortunately I’m not a scientist so can give an opinion. 90% us.
How bad is it going to get? Well we could achieve the incredible and be the first species to cause our own extinction. That’s actually not an exaggeration..
The IPCC report in 2007 gives a relatively benign assessment of a 2-4 degree warming implied as a steady gentle increase. Not too bad. Problems only occur when you look at the process for producing that report. Politicians had line by line approval. That means every word had to be approved by every government. In other words a camel, defined as a horse designed by a committee.
Every vested interest you could think of and a few you couldn’t chucked their tuppenceworth in to it to achieve “consensus”.
When you read and here the climate scientists in their own words the future doesn’t look too bright. If the climate warms slowly and gently giving lots of adaption time, it will be the first time ever. All the accumulated evidence from the past is it changes suddenly violently and brutally, sometimes in a couple of years.
4 degrees of warming is certainly not survivable at current population and lifestyle.
Please have a think about that until part 2.
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