The IPCC released its fifth assessment yesterday and, as expected, found that it is extremely likely (95 percent) that humans are causing climate change. It's key findings:
— Global warming is "unequivocal," and since the 1950's it's "extremely likely" that human activities have been the dominant cause of the temperature rise.
— Concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased to levels that are unprecedented in at least 800,000 years. The burning of fossil fuels is the main reason behind a 40 percent increase in C02 concentrations since the industrial revolution.
— Global temperatures are likely to rise by 0.3 to 4.8 degrees C, or 0.5-8.6 F, by the end of the century depending on how much governments control carbon emissions.
— Most aspects of climate change will continue for many centuries even if CO2 emissions are stopped.
— Sea levels are expected to rise a further 10-32 inches (26-82 centimeters) by the end of the century.
— The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass over the past two decades. Glaciers have continued to melt almost all over the world. Arctic sea ice has shrunk and spring snow cover has continued to decrease, and it is "very likely" that this will continue.
— It's "virtually certain" that the upper ocean has warmed from 1971 to 2010. The ocean will continue to warm this century, with heat penetrating from the surface to the deep ocean.
All of this means we need to take action now to avert the various international stability issues that are going to arise as a result of these facts. Whatever money we invest now in reducing emissions will be paltry compared to how much we are going to spend in the next century on dealing with the fallout.
Naturally, the Church of the Climate Deniers are raging in full mouth foam (complete with tin foil hat) about how they are going to be controlled by some sort of secret cadre of New World Order folks. Sadly, they fail to note the number of new markets this could create, the innovation that will occur (most of which will likely come from our country), and ultimately the amount of money to be made from this technology. That latter is what is finally going to get them to come around.
The link above contains quite a bit of data and research for you scientists to pour over. Check it out!
4 comments:
Do try to keep up.
UN climate panel: Hmm, how can we selectively edit these inconvenient truths to outwit those anti-science denialists?
In a sneak preview of their first big “landmark” report on climate change since 2007, the big-government, progressive, eco-radical, globalist types on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the United Nations revealed in August that they are absotively, posilutely 95 percent super-duper certain that global warming is definitely happening to a dangerous degree and that human activity is the overwhelming cause behind it.
The flaw in their master plan, however, is that Planet Earth has recently been presenting some counter-narrative quirks to their hotly anticipated findings (I’m not sure who is hotly anticipating them, but I read somewhere that people are, so it must be true), such as the lack of significant warming over the past fifteen years and the “unexpectedly” aggressive growth of arctic ice — and that’s rather inconvenient for a report that considers itself the definitive guide to Settled Science That Is Beyond Contestation.
CNN has an interesting 'case study' in climate change.
That's Shelton Kokeok, a 68-year-old who lives, with his wife, Clara, at the very edge of the Shishmaref coast, which has been thawing and falling into the sea.
The article continues that the Army Corps of Engineers is vainly dumping money into stabilizing the land for this small community.
Now, let's take a step back. Where exactly did these people that live on the Arctic coast come from? They came from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge - courtesy of climate change. They migrated about this new area for generations - always moving when the local ecological niche either played out or couldn't support their increased population. How many generations have these people lived in this exact spot? Oh, the article doesn't mention that - just that this nice old guy in a dying subsistence culture sees that his island probably won't be habitable in a few more years. Which of course completely misses the long term human experience that when such things happen you fucking move to a better place.
Just came across this, too perfect!
"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."
Say, wasn't it the Navy you said was all big-time concerned about global-warming-cum-climate-change?
Worse, juris, is that that village is located on one end of a barrier island. What do barrier islands do? They move over time. Sometimes they disappear. And new ones may take their place. Except that the Corps of Engineers has been stabilizing and hardening their little piece of it, which only exacerbates the overall problems over time. But why do they live their? Has it been their ancestral home for thousands of years? Why, no, not at all. 'Twas the Bureau of Indian Affairs that made them settle down in one place. The island used to only be a summer camp occupied for a few weeks of each year. Gee, sounds an awful lot like a government-created problem that's being prolonged and aggravated by further government action. Just move the damn village.
That whole sob story is as bogus as the one about Tuvalu atoll about to be drowned by rising seas caused by global warming. Their problems are caused by over-population and development. Part of the island is becoming wetter with brackish water. However, that part of the island was a flooded mangrove swamp before WWII. It was filled in during the war as port and airfield facilities were created. We all know how stable fill is over the long run. Well, surprise, surprise (as Gomer Pyle would say), it's sunk down a bit and is returning to the mangrove swamp it used to be.
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