Can Global Warming/Climate change be stopped?

[jcrew2001]

I haven't seen Gore's movie but I do believe in Global Warming and Climate change. I believe that humans need to minimize the waste in the environment as much as possible.

However, I'm too lazy to find the research, so I'm asking whether changes made to industrial pollution laws, automobile emmissions, household appliances can actually stop or reverse climate change?

I don't want to see things get worse, but can things get any better, or will things just stay the same?

What's the projectory that the planet will become uninhabitable (pbobably in the movie)?

[jpak]

1. Only if individuals take action

Waiting for someone else to solve the problem won't work.

[gravity]

2. It will stop once we run out of fossil fuels

[Fovea]

14. Not necessarily

We are sure that climate is not a linear system, that it can escape, like a wenger's release in a reactor when jolted by sudden input. Chernobyl happened when they were powering down, IIRC.

Climate seems to be more attuned to slow, moderate adjustments, it does not like much hip action on the flippers.

When you do that, the condition does not reverse, it enters a new state, like the ice age, where the changes re-enforce themselves. We dont know where that tipping point lies. Indeed it may be like hyper cooled water, liquid until nudged.

Weather is the planet trying to distribute solar energy that does not fall evenly on the surface of the earth, but is deflected as you move from the equator. The harder it is for the planet to shed the energy, the greater the extremes of weather.

The act of moving heat is a job currently done by both air and water. If the salt conveyor belt stops, the heat at the equator will not warm the upper latitudes. That may mean an ice age, it has before. But it might mean having to add 3 new categories to the Saffer Simpson scale.

When climate moves from one paradigm to another, it is possible that it can go one of multiple ways, that there could be feedback systems that might result in effective thermal transfer, but I suspect none of them will be as user friendly as the gulf stream.


We don't know enough for certain yet. But the evidence so far is not promising. We can reach a point where what we do regarding CO2 will make little difference. Of course species survival is not a sure thing under those conditions.

Watch An Inconvenient Truth. You will think differently afterward, with a clearer understanding.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. I don' think humans will change their habits

the way the world is going a nuclear war will end it all

[gravity]

6. Look on the bright side

Nuclear winter will reverse global warming :sarcasm:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. now there's a thought

[hatrack]

4. Short answer: no. But it can be slowed down.

Since CO2 hangs around in the atmosphere for about 100 years, even if we stopped producing GHGs tomorrow, we'd still have about a century's worth of warming with what we've already produced beyond the absorptive capacity of the biosphere.

Methane, similarly, has a shelf-life of more than a decade, though it's far more efficient than CO2 at absorbing infrared.

However, there will be warming no matter what we do. The only question is whether it's a relatively small further increase in global temperatures and climate destabilization, or something truly devastating - 700 or 1,000 ppm of CO2, in which case all bets are off.

http://www.realclimate.org

This is a good place to start.

[poiuytsister]

18. Branson is offering a huge prize for any scientist

that comes up with a viable invention to combat GW, something like 25 million dollars. I was catching up on the weeks newspapers and saw a picture with him and Gore.

[Deja Q]

5. I don't have much a scientific mind, but I am illogical enough to see what the logical may not.

I'd love to work on an analogue of photosynthesis, which would turn CO2 into O2.

I already do as much as I can not to waste. And think of ways to do more.

And to look at what contributes the most and curtail or make substitutes for them. It CAN be done. Do we want to CHOOSE to?

And if I must be cynical, no amount of money can spare the wealthy from the same inevitability. If they are greedy for their own benefit, it is just as much TO their benefit to be able to spend some of it in order to save themselves.

[kenny blankenship]

7. One way we'll never have to find out!

We just keep doing what we're doing. This plan not only avoids the fear and doubt of a negative answer but it has the added benefits of being easy, fun, and in accord with our established preferences for sloth and overconsumption.
The surest way to face down an answer you can't psychologically handle is to never ask the question!

[PhilipShore]

9. Yes

[Double T]

10. Unlikely. The human population will NOT be willing live with far less........

creature comforts and excesses.

[kestrel91316]

11. No idea. But if we don't try, we deserve to die.

[bananas]

12. Yes, it can be stabilized

This describes the basic approach - use a combination of methods to reduce carbon emissions.
http://www.theclimategroup.org/index.php?pid=549
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5686/968?ijkey=Y58LIjdWjMPsw&keytype=ref&siteid=sci
http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm

[pitohui]

13. anything "can" happen

in my humble opinion the likelihoods are almost zero that things can get any better or stay the same, from what i've read, it's a question of how much worse it's going to get

a limited thermonuclear exchange/nuclear winter has actually been suggested by some in usa as a fairly good option considered some of the alternatives, for instance, the human race reduced to those famous few dozen breeding pairs remaining around the poles

i doubt the entire planet becomes uninhabitable, what i predict is that the few habitable places are fiercely fought over and seized by the most powerful with the most money and the most weapons

the poor will be exterminated and replaced with robots, there will be no one tolerated to breathe limited air, drink limited supplies of water, or use valuable food and medical supplies if they are not a member of well-connected families

i see this worst case scenario in 200 to 500 year time range tho, it is not necessarily going to impact you or i

however, robots can already put together cars and debone chickens, the DARPA challenge of the cars being able to drive themselves across the desert was easily met, we are getting closer and closer to the day where the answer to global climate change and the resulting very limited habitable land area will be met the old-fashioned way -- by exterminating those of us in the out groups

i hope this is just science fiction i'm writing but that's my view of it

if there's one seat in the lifeboat, it goes to mary cheney's child, not yours or mine -- there will always be some humans, it's just that it will be the bad ones, the rich ones who profited by killing us

and it kind of pisses me off frankly

[soothsayer]

15. solar system's heating up, earth is entering an

energy cloud for next 3000 years (is exciting our sun already), and we are neaeing the galactic center (the dark rift, part of an age old climate cycle) SO it's more important than ever that we at least try to make it thru the coming changes. besides, less pollution would be nice.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. I don't really think so.

I already wrote several paragraphs on this, here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=178892&mesg_id=179173

[kurth]

17. Milankovitch cycles are survivable, 6+ degC warming would be certain death

for humans.