Now that the Climate Denier Ass Clowns are Recanting, the REAL Debate Begins.

[Junkdrawer]

Got some bad news for you, Sunshine.

Best available Science says that the lion's share of Today's Human Induced Global Warming is due to all the carbon humanity put into the atmosphere 40 YEARS AGO. Since then, we've been putting carbon into the atmosphere at an exponentially increasing rate. That alone says that the effects of climate change will increase exponentially IF WE ALL STOPPED ALL CARBON EMISSIONS TODAY. And then there's the feedback loops that the current models don't model.

See:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101744079

And:

http://www.bitsofscience.org/greenland-ice-sheet-5236/

So what is the Real Debate? What kind of Geoengineering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering) do we do and how soon should we start? Anything else is wishful-thinking-wanking that could (and unless humanity changes quickly) will kill us all.

I think secret experiments have been going on for a while. The Scientific community needs to see the data. Open experiments are also starting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/17/us-geoengineers-spray-sun-balloon

We'll have one or maybe two shots at getting it right. We will be monkeying with the entire ecosystem in a way we've never done before on purpose. We need a full on Manhattan-Project-On-Steroids. And we need it now.

[lunatica]

1. I fully believe in climate change and global warming

But it simply doesn't make sense that what we're seeing today is due to something in the air 40 years ago. The crap we're spewing into the air is already there now and the effects are happening now, not 40 years from now.

Other than that I agree with everything else.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Ocean Inertia.

Abstract

The Earth's equilibrium climate sensitivity has received much attention
because of its obvious relevance and importance for global
warming policymaking. This paper focuses on the Earth's thermal
inertia time scale which has received relatively little attention. The
dierence between the observed transient climate sensitivity and the
equilibrium climate sensitivity is shown to be proportional to the thermal
inertia time scale, and the numerical value of the proportionality
factor is determined using recent observational data. Many useful
policymaking insights can be extracted from the resulting empirical
quantitative relation. For example, an equilibrium climate sensitivity
above 4:5C would imply a thermal inertia time scale of over 3
decades, and therefore a very sluggish response to any determined
mitigation eorts.

http://www.princeton.edu/~lam/documents/RoyceLam2010.pdf

[lunatica]

7. But the scientific models have all been off because of the acceleration

of climate change. Scientists are now admitting that things are getting bad much faster than they calculated. I think this means that things are happening like a leak in a dam. At first only a trickle comes out but after a certain point the dam actually breaks up much faster than if the same amount of trickle just doubled. The build up may start slowly but soon it accelerates into a sudden major break. That's what I'm thinking is possibly happening, although I'm sure not claiming to know more than scientists do.

[DCKit]

19. I've lived on the east coast nearly all my 49 years, but I'd never seen a Derecho until June 29th...

then a second one (far less violent) came through last Thursday evening - 27 days later.

We're so screwn.

[HereSince1628]

22. We've had them in the upper midwest all my life, for us what's changed is the name

that the local weathermen use. It's gone from an English phrase 'straight line winds' to Spanish word of similar meaning.

What we lack here are adjectives to build on 'f**king' in relationship to heat.

If we don't get away from the common use of maternal lineage with 'fu**ing' we're soon going to be describing our weather as great great grandmother of all fu**ing heat waves.

[DCBob]

5. I think the idea is that it takes awhile for something as big as the earth to heat up.

Its a bit like our summer... the hottest temps are recorded in July & August but the longest day and most direct sun is in late June. Im sure GW effects are much more complex than that but I think the general concept is similar.

[lunatica]

12. You're right

And I understand that. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think that at some point it won't matter how much pollution is in the atmosphere because the tipping point will happen very suddenly. Like a dam with a small crack and a minor leak. It won't just keep cracking and leaking until it's destroyed. At some point the water behind it will break the dam very suddenly. That's what all the pollution going into the air now will do. It won't take another 40 years for us to feel its effects. We'll feel it much sooner than that.

Perhaps when there's enough methane in the atmosphere from melting permafrost to suddenly explode into flames over a sizable amount of the planet.

[flamingdem]

2. K&R

[2on2u]

4. How ironic

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/algae-ice-age-climate/
Can Adding Iron To Oceans Slow Global Warming?

This algae, called Chaetoceros atlanticus, can bloom in the ocean when iron is added to the water. It captures carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carries the carbon down underwater when it sinks.

A noted oceanographer once quipped that if you gave him a tanker half-filled with iron, he could give you an ice age. He was only half-joking. Adding iron to the ocean can cause blooms of algae, which have the potential to take huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air and by so doing, cool the planet. And a report in Nature magazine now offers some support for that idea.

The premise of this experiment is that algae growing in the oceans around Antarctica can't grow fast because it's starved of an essential nutrient: iron. Victor Smetacek at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, says iron in the ocean is as precious as water is for plants on the land.

"Where you have heavy rainfall you have forests, and where you have no rainfall you have deserts," he says. "And you have the same thing with iron falling from the atmosphere on the oceans."

[MH1]

6. Geo-engineering - what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

I'm about as serious about climate change as anyone you'll meet, but here's the deal: climate change already IS "geo-engineering" - just of the unplanned kind. The one way we could seriously fuck things up even worse than we already have? Try some "planned" geo-engineering with our incomplete knowledge. No thank you. No, we need to start with:

1) significantly reduce population, starting with easy and encouraged access to voluntary reproductive control (i.e. contraception and early term abortion, EASILY available). As for the rest, don't worry, the conflicts occurring now will increase in intensity and casualties as resources become more scarce, and population will eventually take care of itself to some extent.

2) build more stuff like this: http://ow.ly/cyGgr

3) help people understand how to live comfortably with less stuff so they can handle living in places like in 2).

I'm sure there's more we can do, but geo-engineering is about the scariest thing we could attempt, and would probably be counter-productive (i.e. just kill off the human race faster than Mother Nature is about to).

[Junkdrawer]

8. Right with you. Said so before. BUT we have to mitigate the Sins Of The Fathers....

Problem in a nutshell: CO2 in the atmosphere (in the quantities we put there) is forever UNLESS WE TAKE IT OUT. And the inertia of the energy we put in the ocean already in place.

Make no mistake: This is no easy/quick fix. It will EASILY be the most dangerous thing we've ever done ON PURPOSE. That's why we need a FULL AND OPEN DEBATE.

[MH1]

14. If humans disappeared and the earth reforested itself, wouldn't that remove some CO2?

I'm not an expert on the numbers, I just know they are stark.

I have seen it estimated that the actual carrying capacity of the planet is about 2 billion humans. The longer we take to start decreasing population, the worse it's going to get before it starts getting better. I'm not in favor of draconian policies but if we don't act soon to handle this humanely, I think it will take its own course and horrible things will happen, including outright genocide.

However we get there, to some extent I think the future population will need to live with a higher equilibrium temperature. That in itself isn't terrible for the survivors, just might be lousy for those who lose out in the resource wars along the way. And of course the residents of islands and coastlines that will be underwater.

Of course, maybe ideas like putting iron in the oceans can help a bit. But what about the unintended consequences that take us by surprise? Heck I'm not an expert but I know that algal blooms cause serious problems for aquatic ecosystems. So we might get some help by doing stuff like that but we have to proceed VERY carefully. There ain't going to be a quick fix. I don't think there will be any planet-wide solution, either.

But I do agree with you that we need to get on with the debate as to how we solve this. Of course there will be ideological fundies at every turn trying to block any intelligent course of action, like easily available contraception. Sigh.

[TalkingDog]

9. Yep. We are recklessly addressing a symptom while ignoring the problem.

Foreboding.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Agreed. We need to get away from private autos and switch to mass transit. Wind. Solar.

All of it. But the Science I'm seeing says that's not CLOSE to enough.

Quiting cigs after a diagnosis of lung cancer is good. You'll still need chemo if you want a fighting chance.

[MH1]

15. I guess my basic point is that it isn't (only) WHAT people do, it's HOW MANY are doing it.

For an extreme example, there's no lifestyle that would be "sustainable" for a TRILLION people on this planet.

If there were only 100 people on the planet, well the human race might die out due to genetic instability, but we could probably all drive gas guzzlers and private planes and not make a dent in the climate.

So, what's the number? I'm pretty sure it's a lot less than 7 billion. To support 7 billion you'd have to change human culture in an incomprehensibly huge way. I don't think 7 billion could be supported even all lived like the Malaysian project I posted above (although it would be a lot better than what we currently do). And how would you even get people to do that? People are going to be wasteful and try to live "comfortably". So what's the number that can be supported without relying on a complete change in human nature?

Then, how do we get to that number?

And then, what do we do about all the damage we've already caused, and will continue causing until we get to that number?

Edited to clarify and add: Of course to some extent it IS "what" people do, too. That has to change, even with a more reasonable population number. But it doesn't matter how sustainable people's lifestyles are, if there's just too many people. And let's not forget that currently, we have lots of people living painful, suffering lives, many due to parents who were unwilling and/or unready to raise children, but in any case existing in terrible conditions due to rules of our culture.

[Junkdrawer]

16. Margaret Sanger was a visionary and the IDIOTS who cut foreign aid to programs...

that include birth control should be lined up against a wall and (CENSORED DUE TO DU RULES ).

Note my post yesterday:

Mother Nature is an Uncompromising, Eco-Terrorist Purist

She has given us a list of demands “This much CO2 and No More! This many Humans and No More!” And the filthy b***h didn’t even give us any reasonable numbers. Here’s what she said: “The only numbers I'll give you is body counts.”

Now, we have told her the political realities of the Senate. We told her that China is turning a deaf ear. Hell, we even tried to appeal to her ego by Green Washing everything in sight. But all she says is “You know the Laws of Thermodynamics, obey the Law or else.” Then we told her that we USED to be a nation of laws, but now we’re a nation of Billionaire rule and Billionaires could give a shit about Her laws. Her response was to lay waste to our breadbasket.

If we don’t stop her, I swear she’s getting ready to flood our coasts. It’s time we lock her up in isolation until she learns how to compromise in the face of our overwhelming power.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021032665

CO2 and Population are the two biggies. Everything else pales in comparison.

[procon]

10. The exponential effects of global warming are on a steep logarithmic curve

The public has been bamboozled by a massive collusion between the greedy, lying fossil fuel bastards, the writers of made to order "scientific" white-papers", and the soulless politicians who enabled them to jeopardize the whole planet by spewing 40 years worth of accumulated toxic particulates into our fragile atmosphere in exchange for a few bucks.


What's worse, no one will be held accountable, and no one will have the courage to do anything about it. "Post-apocalyptic" isn't just a sci-fi movie theme any more.

[tularetom]

13. What more can I do? I already recycle my aluminum cans

While this information is alarmingly true, it tends to convey to the average human being that individual efforts to mitigate climate change are probably a waste of time.

If these drastic atmospheric changes are the result of human action from decades ago, there is very little that any one individual can do to make any difference.

[AverageJoe90]

21. Which is part of the reason why.........

I am HIGHLY skeptical(pardon) of the OP.

[Shankapotomus]

17. If we can't change our energy and

consumption habits, money should at least be put into filtering what we put into the atmosphere out of it.

[Sirveri]

18. No. Next step is to fight the idiots who will claim it's too late to do anything about it.

[Junkdrawer]

20. CO2 is (almost) forever...

FAQ 10.3, Figure 1. (a) Simulated changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration relative to the present-day for emissions stabilised at the current level (black), or at 10% (red), 30% (green), 50% (dark blue) and 100% (light blue) lower than the current level; (b) as in (a) for a trace gas with a lifetime of 120 years, driven by natural and anthropogenic fluxes; and (c) as in (a) for a trace gas with a lifetime of 12 years, driven by only anthropogenic fluxes.

https://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-10.3.html

It really defies common sense - we feel that if we cut back 50%, half the man-made warming will fairly quickly go away. It won't.