Environmental Collapse: when and how bad?

IdleRich

IdleRich
Since when did being sceptical mean you were 'disseminating misinformation' or 'attempting to undermine a consensus'?
Maybe it doesn't but it seems pretty clear with this film that people are disseminating misinformation. How else do you explain the fact that graphs of temperatures were altered so that they reflected the thesis that the film was putting across? And, by the way, it's accepted that the results were altered in that way - it's just that the film-maker claims it was a mistake. Why else did the film give made-up qualifications to "experts" who were in agreement with the film-maker? Being sceptic doesn't make you a heretic but deliberately making films describing lies as facts is wrong isn't it?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
is it me or are severe weather patterns escalating at an amazing pace? this year seems much worse than last in terms of storms no?

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mixed_biscuits

_________________________
is it me or are severe weather patterns escalating at an amazing pace? this year seems much worse than last in terms of storms no?

'Global warming' has been relegated to the non-committal 'climate change' here, as there has been sod all warming all summer. In fact, there has been very little extreme weather in the UK, bar the flash flood here and there - just dull blankets of grey.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
'Global warming' has been relegated to the non-committal 'climate change' here, as there has been sod all warming all summer. In fact, there has been very little extreme weather in the UK, bar the flash flood here and there - just dull blankets of grey.

what about the rain? do y'all see an increase in some areas over say... last 20 years?

but Cuba and Indonesia and other places... one after another lately it seems... :(
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
what about the rain? do y'all see an increase in some areas over say... last 20 years?

I suppose I would have to look at the stats. This summer came nowhere near being the rainiest I remember in my neck of the woods, tho' some other parts supposedly had it quite bad.
 

zhao

there are no accidents

US planning to weaken Copenhagen climate deal, Europe warns


Europe has clashed with the US Obama administration over climate change in a potentially damaging split that comes ahead of crucial political negotiations on a new global deal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The dispute between the US and Europe is over the way national carbon reduction targets would be counted. Europe has been pushing to retain structures and systems set up under the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on climate change. US negotiators have told European counterparts that the Obama administration intends to sweep away almost all of the Kyoto architecture and replace it with a system of its own design

"In Europe we want to build on Kyoto, but the US proposal would in effect kill it off. If we have to start from scratch then it all takes time. It could be 2015 or 2016 before something is in place, who knows."

Europe is unlikely to stand up to the US, the source added. "I am not sure that the EU actually has the guts for a showdown and that may be exactly the problem." The US plan is likely to anger many in the developing world, who are keen to retain Kyoto because of the obligations it makes on rich countries.

Under Kyoto, greenhouse gas reductions are subject to an international system that regulates the calculation of emissions, the purchase of carbon credits and contribution of sectors such as forestry. The US is pushing instead for each country to set its own rules and to decide unilaterally how to meet its target.

The US is yet to offer full details on how its scheme might work, though a draft "implementing agreement" submitted to the UN by the Obama team in May contained a key clause that emissions reductions would be subject to "conformity with domestic law".

Legal experts say the phrase is designed to protect the US from being forced to implement international action it does not agree with. Farhana Yamin, an environmental lawyer with the Institute of Development Studies, who worked on Kyoto, said: "It seems a bit backwards. The danger is that the domestic tail starts to wag the international dog."
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I suppose I would have to look at the stats. This summer came nowhere near being the rainiest I remember in my neck of the woods, tho' some other parts supposedly had it quite bad.

Fucking pissed it down in London last night, I got saturated. My hat seems to have survived though, so it's not the disaster it could have been.

Seriously, I've only seen rain like that a few times outside the tropics.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
just in case you were having a good day:

Shock as retreat of Arctic sea ice releases 'fountains' of methane bubbling to surface


"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr Semiletov said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them."

Scientists estimate that there are hundreds of millions of tonnes of methane gas locked away beneath the Arctic permafrost, which extends from the mainland into the seabed of the relatively shallow sea of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. One of the greatest fears is that with the disappearance of the Arctic sea-ice in summer, and rapidly rising temperatures across the entire region, which are already melting the Siberian permafrost, the trapped methane could be suddenly released into the atmosphere leading to rapid and severe climate change.
 

luka

Well-known member
i was having a big fight with my cousin about a carbon tax last night. i think its basically quite sensible. he doesnt accept that carbon is a problem. he kept saying, we breathe carbon dioxide. trees like it. we should just build more trees. carbon is a harmless inert gas. i tried to put a plastic bag over his head but h said that was a childish argument.
he said we dont know carbon dioxide traps heat. mayb it reflects it. how can you tell he said. then he spoutd semi-digested libertarian stuff about government intervention being bad and the results of interfering in the market are unpredictable. i said give me examples and he said i cant think of any so i suggested fags and booze and congstion charge. i thought thosee were good examples.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
the production and manufacturing of nature is an idea explored by urbanists since the 60s... anyone seen those proposed high-rise apartment buildings with a "forest" surrounding it on every floor? no time to find it right now but as cool as it looks i'm not sure if it's such a great idea in the end due to practical problems and also because minor things like this seems like it won't make much a dent in pollution much less carbon problem, and it might actually make people think that we don't need to stop chopping down the rain forests because we can just make forests in the city.
 

you

Well-known member
theres no harm in getting more trees into urban spaces, it's a drop in the (rising) ocean but it's still positive, controlling amazon deforestation is the key - last time I heard it was something like an area the size of jupiter gets destroyed every minute - but seriously that's the one massive thing that mans could get to sorting...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
How much difference would it really make if the whole of London actually looked like that?

To global CO2 levels? Obviously nothing you could measure, even in principle.

To London's appearance, and probably air quality as well? Shitloads of difference. Edit: not that London is necessarily the best city to be decked out in vertical farms (can't read that phrase without thinking of Tamara Beckwith on Brass Eye) but, well, trees generally pretty the place up a bit, anyway. Considering how densely built up London is I think it has a very decent amount of greenery in it.

Obviously climate change is The Big One but there's more to environmental issues than just the capital-e Environment. Something that makes a single city a cleaner, more attractive and generally more pleasant place to live has got to be worthwhile, I reckon. Assuming the infrastructure for it hasn't all been manufactured in a grotesquely carbon-intensive way in some industrial hell-hole in China.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
yeah stuff like that. and that alien biodome vertical farm in Dubai too...

but i was thinking of this "vertical forest" thing in Milan. and look they actually building it now. i hope dry branches falling during winter carried by wind don't smash through the windshield of a bus.

if i'm honest, and allow myself to step away from the good humor which is necessary to get by on an everyday basis, i think the time to start with the utter hopeless despair was probably a few years ago.

the deforestation has not stopped hardly at all. biggest polluting countries ignoring kyoto.

i mean what can anyone do at this point to stop those tens of thousands of 1000 meters diameter methane fountains? and this is during WINTER.
 
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