The Scariest Climate Change Graph Just Got Scarier by 1kiki

America loves a winner!

Oh yeah, I'm losing sleep over it.

AGW has been thoroughly debunked, so the zealots amp up the hype, even more, to try to get their religion paid attention to by the yawning public.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

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" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 4:02 AM

CANTTAKESKY

Graphs schmaphs.

Any grade school kid who has watched Cyberchase on PBS can tell you that graphs are only as meaningful as their context. You can make anything look scary if you zoom in close enough.

I need the graph to show 100,000 years before I get scared. We're talking about the Earth, and not creationist 6000 yr old Earth. 100K minimum.

That is not to say that there isn't a warming problem, or that we shouldn't be concerned about human behavior. This graph is simply not good evidence of the problem.

-----

Disobedience is not an issue if obedience is not the goal.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 10:19 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
That is not to say that there isn't a warming problem, or that we shouldn't be concerned about human behavior. This graph is simply not good evidence of the problem.

That's not helping much. I need to be told what to do to help save the planet.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 7:49 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

That is the rub, isn't it. But I don't have an answer.

In China for example, I've read that the young people are so upset at the pollution that they're demonstrating - and the government is moving on it. Germany now supplies 25% of its energy from wind and solar power.

So obviously it can be done b/c it has been done and it is being done. So why not the US? I think it's that there's not enough pressure from the ground-up. And it's hard to develop widespread appreciation for the problem when it's being hidden from public view, the administration doesn't address it, and the cheerleading about how the US is the best, the greatest, the most ... yadda yadda yadda ... is endless.

Also for your consideration, I've read that the large enviro organizations made a serious miscalculation in thinking they could conduct business as usual - through clubby backroom discussions - and didn't take the anti-enviro backlash into account.

If there was a figure or organization people could focus on it could ignite a common movement. I just don't see it happening.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 7:51 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

CTS

That's what the link was for. I can't do your reading for you.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 7:52 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Study: Major cuts to surging carbon dioxide emissions needed now

Mon, 01/07/2013 - 9:43am

Halting climate change will require "a fundamental and disruptive overhaul of the global energy system" to eradicate harmful carbon dioxide emissions, not just stabilize them, according to new findings by University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) and other scientists.

In a paper in Environmental Research Letters, UC Irvine Earth system scientist Steve Davis and others take a fresh look at the popular "wedge" approach to tackling climate change outlined in a 2004 study by Princeton scientists Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow. They had argued that the rise of dangerous carbon dioxide could be stopped—using existing technologies—by dividing the task into seven huge but manageable "slices."

Davis and his co-authors conclude that while the approach has great merit, it's not working, and it's not enough. "We have enormous respect for that earlier work," he says. "But almost a decade after 'wedges' made a solution to climate change seem doable, we now know that holding emissions steady, difficult as it would be, is literally a half-measure—and one that we have yet to take. Our emissions are not being held constant or even slowing; they're growing faster than ever."

The 2004 plan involved such tactics as doubling the number of nuclear reactors worldwide and increasing automotive fuel efficiency from an average of 30 mpg to 60 mpg. Each "wedge," if accomplished, would after 50 years avoid 1 billion tons of carbon per year—and seven wedges combined, Pacala and Socolow estimated, would prevent the worst effects of climate change.

However, Davis and fellow authors of the new paper calculated that as many as 31 wedges could be required to stabilize Earth's climate at safe carbon dioxide levels and that sharp reductions in total emissions would have to begin much sooner than half a century from now.

"We need new ways to generate the vast quantities of power that we now use worldwide," he says. "Current technologies and systems cannot provide this much carbon-free power quickly enough or affordably enough. We urgently need policies and programs that support the research, development, demonstration, and commercialization of new energy."

Source: University of California, Irvine

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013 8:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Graphs schmaphs.

Any grade school kid who has watched Cyberchase on PBS can tell you that graphs are only as meaningful as their context. You can make anything look scary if you zoom in close enough.

I need the graph to show 100,000 years before I get scared. We're talking about the Earth, and not creationist 6000 yr old Earth. 100K minimum.

Christ. I've posted the 100,000 year graph. It's out there. Lots of them are out there! ie:

Let's review: ice core measurements from multiple different places on the earth show that the earth has ~100,000 year ice age cycles, with 80K years in ice age, 20K inter ice age. We have now been inter ice age for 20K years, as is well supported by many independent observations.

Now LOOK at the graph. Look and think. Solar radiation (at the all important N 65° Latitude) has fallen off sharply in the last several thousand years. Earth's natural cycle is to also see a drop off of methane (and CO2 and temperature and other things - you could go find those graphs if you were really open minded.) Earth's natural course of action at this point, as it has been for hundreds of millenia, is to go back into an ice age.

And yet we're not. And yet the ice sheets on Baffin island and all through the Artic are dwindling to nothing rather than building up as they have for the past several cycles (At least 4 100,000 year cycles have been mapped in detail and match perfectly with solar radiation due to variations in the Earth's orbit.)

So what's different this time? What happened on the Earth during this last 20K year inter-ice age that never happened before? Don't be afraid of Occum's razer here, don't hide from the obvious: what has spread across the surface of the Earth that never existed before? What has messed with carbon in the form of trees, agriculture, hydrocarbons...

Hint: it starts with hu- It ends with -mans.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 1:12 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
So what's different this time? What happened on the Earth during this last 20K year inter-ice age that never happened before? Don't be afraid of Occum's razer here, don't hide from the obvious: what has spread across the surface of the Earth that never existed before? What has messed with carbon in the form of trees, agriculture, hydrocarbons...

So, it's not even just the result of the industrial revolution, as we were first told, but our mere existence ?

Moon-battery 101.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

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" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 5:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
So, it's not even just the result of the industrial revolution, as we were first told, but our mere existence ?

Moon-battery 101.

I know you live in a state of passive quiescence, capable of nothing but trumpeting or mocking that which you have been "told" without reference to source or reliability, but most other people find it possible to leave the state of quivering jelliness, go out into the world, and broaden our understanding.

I doubt you'll grok that sentence, but it was fun to write. And I had to share my new title for you: Rap the Petulant Quivering Jelliness.

OK, for those who actually think rather than jiggle when poked, here's a cartoon of the overall effects of humanity on climate change. Ruddiman's point is that the changes started long ago (~8000 years for CO2 due to tree clearing/burning and 5,000 years for CH4 due to irrigation and rice farming) and were very gradual, then took a huge upswing in the past century.

Not everyone agrees with Ruddiman, but his argument is pretty solid. I've been following him since I read his book ~5 years ago, and his theories are gaining traction. Here's a quote from a recent USA Today article, which has many links to various studies if you want to read more:

"For more than a decade, most climate scientists marked the starting point of the Anthropocene era as 1850, the point at which these two greenhouse gases began their exponential increase in the atmosphere, up to levels today unseen for at least the past 650,000 years. Those increases are responsible for much of the 1.4-degree Fahrenheit increase in global average atmospheric temperatures during the modern era, according to the American Meteorological Society.

Since 2003 however, Ruddiman has instead argued that the Anthropocene's effects had kicked off global warming much earlier, starting thousands of years ago (the previous period would be the "Holocene," which started 10,000 years ago or so). And more climate scientists are agreeing with him on that today."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/vergano/2013/03/02/anthro
pocene-climate-farming/1955041/

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 5:35 AM

America loves a winner!

AGW is a fabricated, non issue. You can try to insult me to your hearts content, but that won't change 1 gorram thing.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 5:43 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Let's ignore rappy. Facts do not make an impression on him, For him, the world is just the way he believes it to be: rich people deserve to be richer, Saddam was an existential threat to the USA, all Muslims are bad, and there is no global warming because it might mean that his favorite investments would become unrofitable.

Rappy is a humanoid, not a real boy. Imagine that a cartoon character is writing to this board... that should get you over the urge of replying to him as if it might change his mind. He does have a brain, but he doesn't use it. Keep that in mind.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:01 AM

Sig, I find this thing Rap said quite illuminating: "as we were first told..." He says stuff like this a lot, and seems to feel cheated when he is "told" different things.

And so I ponder: Rap lives in the Faux news world where some all powerful "They" decide what the "Truth" is. There is only one Holy Truth and all voices agree, even going so far as to use the same words. This is comforting to him.

Then he steps outside that safe system and hears several authoritative voices making statements that disagree. In his mind, because they disagree, they are not really authorities, and they certainly are not correct. His need to be comforted by an all-knowing authority is so strong that he will accept nothing else.

I find it interesting. Not as interesting as Climate Change, but maybe just as important. The RWA mentality is just as capable of destroying the world.

Carry on.

ETA: Missed the end of your post. I wasn't replying to him in the sense of making conversation with him. I mock him, yes, because it's fun. And study him, because he's an interesting specimen. But you need have no fear that I'll do a full RWED tango with him. I've never had a problem turning my back on that dance partner.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:11 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Mal4 and Kiki- thanks for the info.

Jongsstraw: Hubby says that we can't stop this thing now.... it's like pushing a boulder down a hill... it may only take a little energy to get going, and starts off slowly but once it's going the only thing you can do is get out of the way.

I think I agree. Even IF we reverse our carbon dioxide emissions ... and that's a big friggin' "if", seeing as a large chunk of our economy and military has been committed to procuring, protecting, and using petroleum over the past 70 years... so even If we reverse our carbon emissions, we can only slow down the temeprature increase, we can't stop it or reverse it.

Among other things, we have set in motion several "positive feedback loops" which were initiated by temperature rise which will make the temperature rise even worse in the future:

Loss of forests due to heat/drought-induced wildfires - not only pumps more CO2 into the air, but also reduces the amount of CO2 uptake by plants.

Loss of polar ice- makes the earth less reflective, leading to more solar absorption, leading to more lost ice.

There area lot of things we COULD do: reduce our population, promote birth control, promote education of women worldwide (educated women have fewer children), equalize wealth internationally (stable societies have fewer children), move to renewable energy, reduce energy waste, pre-plant areas with a mix of heat-tolerant native species to "pre-adapt" to the coming change, set about doing wide-scale forestry with a vengeance (clear underbrush, thin stands and create biochar to stabilize carbon and water flow), begin to move our coastal developments further inland (example- do not issue build permits on land within 30 feet of mean sea level), etc etc etc.

There are a lot of things we "can" do, but we will do none of them, because the people in control have absolutely no interest in change.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There are a lot of things we "can" do, but we will do none of them, because the people in control have absolutely no interest in change.

I agree. We will not change ourselves, but the system of nature will self-correct. How?

Here's an interesting idea from Ruddiman (same USA Today article I linked to above):

"The clearest signal of this effect comes from the 1500s, when the arrival of Columbus led to widespread depopulation of the New World through diseases such as smallpox, a devastating loss to humanity documented in Charles Mann's 2006 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. A series of studies, most recently an October report in the journal Nature looking at ice-core records, tie drops in methane linked to the reforestation of a depopulated New World to cooling periods known as the "Little Ice Age" starting after 1560."

I'm not convinced of this, though there is some very tempting logic there: people in the New World die, trees return, trapping carbon from the air, world cools. Hmm.

Now, suppose the Big Virus gets loose. People die, trees grow, trapping carbon, the world cools. That's how it's likely to go, I think, although it might be a virus. Could be many things. Whatever - it won't be fun.

Death and destruction seems to be the only way we as a species learn.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:31 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MAL4- Rappy has a definite self interest in taking the stances that he does. He has never talked about working; I expect he is a trust fund baby that the system has coddled, and he is terrified of change because it threatens his identity as an entitled person. What he doesn't realize, and probably never will, is that his needs as a human being... his need for food, clean water and air, a friendly society around him... trumps his narrow vision of himself.

People under stress tend to narrow their focus. They see fewer options and shy away from new approaches... just one MORE thing to stress sbout, yanno?... and tend to repeat old patterns of behavior, just more intensely. It's a rare person who can leave their habits behind under times of stress, and jump to something new. The problem comes about when it is the old pattern that got them into trouble in the first place: being too religious and clinging to god for relief. Becoming dependent on high-energy technolog and counting on high-energy technology to get out of a predicament. Or being rich, and trying to preserve wealth during times of exsitential threat.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Now, suppose the Big Virus gets loose. People die, trees grow, trapping carbon, the world cools. That's how it's likely to go, I think, although it might be a virus. Could be many things. Whatever - it won't be fun.

Worst case: the slow cook. A blazing hot, very crowded world of anoxic oceans and little nature; just before the final human extinction. A global extinction event similar to those in the past (We're already heading that way: our current extinction rate already rivals that of previous extinction events.) "The planet" would survive, but naure as we know it would not recover ever, and it would take millions of years to re-establish the biodiversity we have today.

This is IMHO the "worst case" because it is a simple straight-line projection of trends, and therefore the most probable.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 8:24 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
MAL4- Rappy has a definite self interest in taking the stances that he does. He has never talked about working; I expect he is a trust fund baby that the system has coddled, and he is terrified of change because it threatens his identity as an entitled person. What he doesn't realize, and probably never will, is that his needs as a human being... his need for food, clean water and air, a friendly society around him... trumps his narrow vision of himself.

Sig, as you've yet to back 1 damn thing about the lies you've said about me already, how is it that you feel the compulsion to make up more lies?

Truly remarkable.

And my 'self interest ' here? More of a pet peeve, actually. I hate liars. I hate con artists, and hucksters, who knowingly peddle misinformation and deception , for their political or financial benefit.

Such low life degenerates include fortune tellers, mystics, televangelists and pretty much all religious figures who preach damnation in hell for eternity for anyone who doesn't believe THEIR view of the bible, etc.... Also, Presidents who lie about the effects of sequestration, and those who parrot his lies.

Just a few examples.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 8:35 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Sig, I find this thing Rap said quite illuminating: "as we were first told..." He says stuff like this a lot, and seems to feel cheated when he is "told" different things.

No, genius, I just happen to pay attention to how the lies from the Left are perpetually shifting.

In the 70's , all this pollution was going to cause an early ice age. A 'nuclear winter' effect. That changed to Global warming,which became 'climate change'. The carbon footprint of man's industrialized nations were at fault, of course. The 'West', aka 'capitalism', was stealing natural resource from the poor brown people of the world, reaping all the wealth, and saying 'screw you!'

Then some started noticing irregularities in the 'data' which were being collected. Minor errors became huge scandals and cover ups. Models were proving to be laughably incorrect. The 'crisis' we were told was just on the horizon.. never came. And now ? When the cat's out of the bag ? Another narrative make over. It's not just INDUSTRIALIZED man, but ALL of humanity ! We've been doing this for 10,000 years ? Who knew ??

Quote:

And so I ponder: Rap lives in the FOX news world where some all powerful "They" decide what the "Truth" is. There is only one Holy Truth and all voices agree, even going so far as to use the same words. This is comforting to him.

The debate on bias of the MSM is truly over. It's bizarre that you even continue to deny it.

Quote:

Then he steps outside that safe system and hears several authoritative voices making statements that disagree. In his mind, because they disagree, they are not really authorities, and they certainly are not correct. His need to be comforted by an all-knowing authority is so strong that he will accept nothing else.

I have no idea what in the hell you're even talking about there, or if you even know.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 8:48 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So MAl4... got any advice on how to survive the next 40 years? I won't be around, but my child will be.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 8:52 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So MAl4... got any advice on how to survive the next 40 years? I won't be around, but my child will be.

Stay the hell away from big gulp sodas, what ever you do!

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 11:22 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Or being rich, and trying to preserve wealth during times of exsitential threat.

As a wise man once said: "Money is only so much paper to the undead. The 1% will no longer be the very rich; it'll be the very fast."

Anyway, I think you're right about the worst case scenario: a totally dead and poisoned earth would indeed be awful. Somehow I don't think we'll get there. I think nature is more resilient than that. A lot of us will suffer and die, but when has that not been the case? More humans will trudge on, completely unaware of what's happened. Maybe they'll take up some new habits because they'll have no choice.

Last summer I read The Big Oyster, about the history of oyster production in NYC. Apparently, the big apple used to be one of the main suppliers of oysters to the whole world. I mean, it was HUGE! A cornerstone of the city. Oysters were dirt cheap, and a main food supply for the poor. In the late 1800s a few voices started speaking up about over-harvesting and pollution. They warned of the complete destruction of the NY oyster trade and how awful it would be.

Yeah, so it happened. 1910-ish, all at once, bam! No more oysters. We are living in the oyster post-apocalypse. The industry is destroyed, jobs lost, source of livelihoods gone. The bay has more dead bodies and industrial sludge in it than aquatic life. (Though there are efforts to turn it around...)

The really annoying thing is that the average New Yorker neither knows nor cares that this apocalypse happened. The water's poison. OK - check. We go on with our lives and buy imported fish.

The same will happen with global warming. There will be storms, there will be changes, there will be death and destruction and war. But, Siggy, I bet your grand-kids will go on with their lives, slightly shifted from the life you and I know, and if they hadn't had you as a grandparent to keep them informed, they wouldn't even know about what they've lost.

So there won't be imported fish, cause it's all poison. OK, we don't eat fish anymore. So all meat's poison? We eat soylent or something. Each generation lives by new rules, and they don't miss what they never experienced.

Sad but true. The apocalypse won't even be noticed by those it doesn't crush.

Though, I would tell your kids not to build their homes on the beach.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 11:26 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So MAl4... got any advice on how to survive the next 40 years? I won't be around, but my child will be.

By the way, I see what you did here.

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:09 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Yes, it was hot, hot, hot: 2012 weather sets U.S. record

Temperature rising

In Indiana, corn struggled to survive record heat last year. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-50ec9b81/turbine/la-na-nn-united-states-weat
her-2012-hottest-on-001/600

By Neela Banerjee

January 8, 2013, 2:36 p.m.

Last year was the hottest on record for the contiguous 48 states and the second-worst in terms of extreme weather events like tornadoes, wildfires and drought, part of a trend that scientists see strengthening with climate change, according to researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In its annual report, “State of the Climate,” NOAA reported that the average annual temperature was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 3.3 degrees greater than the average temperature for the 20th century. It was also a full degree higher than the previous record high average temperature set in 1998, the biggest jump from one record temperature to another.

The report also confirmed what Americans have lived through for the last year: extreme weather events that are becoming more common. The only year there were more extreme weather events was 1998, when a greater number of tropical cyclones made landfall. In 2012, the Upper Midwest was hit with floods, the mid-Atlantic with a sudden summertime storm called a derecho, the West with wildfire and the Northeast with Hurricane Sandy, among many other events. Most of the country remains in the grip of drought.

For years, climatologists have been reluctant to draw a line from climate change to specific weather events, and NOAA researchers on a conference call about the report were somewhat cautious about making links. But a growing body of research has started to indicate that climate change creates conditions for the kinds of temperatures and events the United States experienced last year, and scientist don’t expect such patterns to change considerably.

“We expect to see a continued trend of big heat events, we expect to see big rain events and with slightly less confidence, we expect to see continued trend in drought,” said Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. “This is consistent with what we would expect in a warming world.”

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:20 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"But, Siggy, I bet your grand-kids will go on with their lives, slightly shifted from the life you and I know, and if they hadn't had you as a grandparent to keep them informed, they wouldn't even know about what they've lost."

I've heard it called "shifting baselines". I suspect it's one reason why things can get progressively worse generation to generation until a crisis comes that can't be ignored. So on Easter Island the palm trees everyone depended on got cut down till there were fewer, and smaller, and then the last one. At that point maybe they were too late to decide otherwise. Maybe they were so embedded in their beliefs they were blinded to the realities of what was happening over time. Or maybe they saw what was happening but thought, well at least I'll get mine first. But the next generation never got to see the full wonder of what came before, and so on, each generation living a more meager existence till they ended up hunting each other for food.

From Shiftingbaselines.org

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 6:33 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

One more item ...

Report says warming is changing U.S. daily life

Sun, 01/13/2013 - 7:01pm

Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)—Global warming is already changing America from sea to rising sea and is affecting how Americans live, a massive new federally commissioned report says.

A special panel of scientists convened by the government issued Friday a 1,146-page draft report that details in dozens of ways how climate change is already disrupting the health, homes and other facets of daily American life. It warns that those disruptions will increase in the future.

"Climate change affects everything that you do," said report co-author Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. "It affects where you live, where you work and where you play and the infrastructure that you need to do all these things. It's more than just the polar bears."

The blunt report takes a global environmental issue and explains what it means for different U.S. regions, for various sectors of the economy and for future generations. The National Climate Assessment doesn't say what should be done about global warming. White House science adviser John Holdren writes that it will help leaders, regulators, city planners and even farmers figure out what to do to cope with coming changes.

And climate change is more than hotter temperatures, the report said. "Human-induced climate change means much more than just hotter weather," the report says, listing rising-seas, downpours, melting glaciers and permafrost, and worsening storms. "These changes and other climatic changes have affected and will continue to affect human health, water supply, agriculture, transportation, energy, and many other aspects of society."

The report uses the word "threat" or variations of it 198 times and versions of the word "disrupt" another 120 times.

If someone were to list every aspect of life changed or likely to be altered from global warming, it would easily be more than 100, said two of the report's authors.

The report, written by team of 240 scientists, is required every four years by law. The first report was written in 2000. No report was issued while George W. Bush was president. The next one came out in 2009. This report, paid for by the federal government, is still a draft and not officially a government report yet. Officials are seeking public comments for the next three months.

"There is so much that is already happening today," said study co-author Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. "This is no longer a future issue. It's an issue that is staring us in the face today."

This version of the report is far more blunt and confident in its assessments than previous ones, Hayhoe said: "The bluntness reflects the increasing confidence we have" in the science and day-to-day realities of climate change.

The report emphasizes that man-made global warming is doing more than just altering the environment we live in, it's a threat to our bodies, homes, offices, roads, airports, power plants, water systems and farms.

"Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways, including impacts from increased extreme weather events, wildfire, decreased air quality, diseases transmitted by insects, food and water, and threats to mental health," the report said.

"Climate change and its impacts threaten the well-being of urban residents in all 13 regions of the U.S.," the report said. "Essential local and regional infrastructure systems such as water, energy supply, and transportation will increasingly be compromised by interrelated climate change impacts."

For example, the report details 13 airports that have runways that could be inundated by rising sea level. It mentions that thawing Alaskan ground means 50 percent less time to drill for oil. And overall it says up to $6.1 billion in repairs need to be made to Alaskan roads, pipelines, sewer systems, buildings and airports to keep up with global warming.

Sewer systems across America may overflow more, causing damages and fouling lakes and waterways because of climate change, the report said. The sewer overflows into Lake Michigan alone will more than double by the year 2100, the report said.

While warmer weather may help some crops, others will be hurt because of "weeds, diseases, insect pests and other climate change-induced stresses," the report said. It said weeds like kudzu do better with warmer weather and are far more likely to spread north.

"Several populations - including children, the elderly, the sick, the poor, tribes and other indigenous people - are especially vulnerable to one or more aspects of climate change," the report said.

The National Climate Assessment

Source: The Associated Press

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 7:02 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
One more item ...

Report says warming is changing U.S. daily life

WASHINGTON (AP)—Global warming is already changing America from sea to rising sea and is affecting how Americans live, a massive new federally commissioned report says.

Total waste of $. But we can't have tours in the White House, due to sequestration cuts ?

Beyond madness.

This purely fabricated NON issue of AGW can only be cured by more govt spending , for more reports and more govt control of our lives, so says a govt funded massive DRAFT report ?

Take Obama's total lies over the sequestration tales of doom and gloom, and multiply them by several million , and you have the crux of this ' report '.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 9:38 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Wow. You ring the bell, he salivates. How mindlessly predictable.

ENJOY YOUR NEXT FOUR YEARS!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - HERE'S LAUGHING AT YOU KID!

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Thursday, March 14, 2013 11:58 PM

America loves a winner!

You want mindlessly predictable?

Quote:
The report, written by team of 240 scientists, is required every four years by law. The first report was written in 2000. No report was issued while George W. Bush was president. The next one came out in 2009. This report, paid for by the federal government , is still a draft and not officially a government report yet. Officials are seeking public comments for the next three months

It's the freaking LAW that this bullshit gets reported. Talk about built in waste!

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, March 15, 2013 2:47 AM

I'd like to see the actual report. That article does a lot of speaking in generalities: "there are threats, there are threats, there are threats..." then finally gives only a few examples. I want to hear more of the examples.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 4:25 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
That is the rub, isn't it. But I don't have an answer.

In China for example, I've read that the young people are so upset at the pollution that they're demonstrating - and the government is moving on it. Germany now supplies 25% of its energy from wind and solar power.

So obviously it can be done b/c it has been done and it is being done. So why not the US? I think it's that there's not enough pressure from the ground-up. And it's hard to develop widespread appreciation for the problem when it's being hidden from public view, the administration doesn't address it, and the cheerleading about how the US is the best, the greatest, the most ... yadda yadda yadda ... is endless.

Also for your consideration, I've read that the large enviro organizations made a serious miscalculation in thinking they could conduct business as usual - through clubby backroom discussions - and didn't take the anti-enviro backlash into account.

If there was a figure or organization people could focus on it could ignite a common movement. I just don't see it happening.

If I were still making what I made in 2009 in the position I'm in, I'd have a roof covered in solar cells. I'd also have several non-gas/tank water heaters installed in key positions in the house that would run off these cells like everything else did.

Turns out, I can't afford to buy food at the store I work minimum wage for, so I have to buy sub-grade food at Aldi for 95% of my food intake.

Then again, I'm not taking handouts. I'm sure my life would be a lot easier if I was on the government dole (and by the low standards set today, I would easily be eligible for assistance).

If you really want to know the difference between America and China in that aspect, I'll give you my opinion on it. Here in America, we've been so used to being able to buy what we want and think we were the best at everything that we continued to buy whatever we wanted long after we were the best at anything and now we can't afford to do anything but keep printing out meaningless bills to keep the poorest of the population from going out and raping and pillaging out of need and boredom.

Too many people, too little food and resources... and yet we export so much food and metals to China and other countries on a yearly basis while still adding trillions to the deficit.....

Where were you in the mid-90's when we were doing so well? Maybe you were one of the 300 people in the country chaining yourself up to trees that were being cut down, but my guess is that you were getting high at Lilith Fair.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 5:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MAL4.... I don't think we need a government report to do our thinking for us. All we need to do is draw a straight-line prediction from current trends to some point in the future, right? How about 30 years from now- pontenially still within my lifetime and definitely within my daughter's. Nothing fancy.

But yanno, I think that deserves a thread of its own.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 6:02 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Where's the shock value in that Signy?

Let's just make it a 5 year graph. Then, when the last 2 years were so snow-free, we can all panic!!!!!

Yay!!!!

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Friday, March 15, 2013 6:16 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

HEY JACK

Quote:
Where were you in the mid-90's when we were doing so well?

In the 90's I was doing what I'm doing now: Working for a government agency which has been measurably successful at improving environmental quality.

In the early 1970's, when I was a teen, I was manning one of the first recyling centers in New York State. In the late 1970's, when I was just starting out, I worked for a private consulting lab climbing smokestacks to test for pollution.

What about you?

PS not everyone has wasted their lives.

Oh PPS.... JACK, I'm sorry that you wasted your life so far. I'm sorry that you drink yourself into a near-stupor before posting. I'm sorry you haven't a fucking clue about how the world works and how to run your life. But some people are trying to have an intelligent conversation here, so I hope you'll forgive me if I ignore you from now on.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 6:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
How about 30 years from now- pontenially still within my lifetime and definitely within my daughter's. Nothing fancy.

I have a research document compiling climate data for Vermont - a friend of mine used it to teach a class on climate change there. I don't have permission to post the figures, but let me sum up its findings. And note, this is all observed over the past few decades. It's based on DATA (that's a poke to posters who demand temperature data before they'll "believe" in CC. And yet, I bet they still won't!)

summer in VT is warming 0.4°F per decade
winter in VT is warming 0.9°F per decade
lakes are frozen by 7 fewer days per decade. boo for pond hockey :(
growing season is longer by 3-4 days per decade
spring comes earlier by 2-3 days per decade
in 16 years Vermont has changed one hardiness zone
- "new" plants and pests are living through the winter. Hello kudzu!
As the arctic warms, the jet stream gets bigger N-S "bumps" that are sluggish to change
- 'quasi-stationary' weather patterns are more common
- storm systems follow one track over and over again.
- wow have we seen this over the past few years!
- "very heavy precipitation" has increased by 67% in VT in 50 yrs
- the southern US had gotten dryer

If we do nothing, in 30 years, summers in Vermont will be like the current summers in West Virginia. Which may be nice if you like to garden. But West VA might then be like Alabama, and Alabama will be like...?

Going beyond our lifetime, if we do nothing, in 60 years summers in Vermont will be like summers in Alabama. Heaven knows what Alabama will be like! If the drying trend continues, it may become more like northern Africa than Central America.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 6:44 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
In the early 1970's, when I was a teen, I was manning one of the first recyling centers in New York State. In the late 1970's, when I was just starting out, I worked for a private consulting lab climbing smokestacks to test for pollution.

What about you?

PS not everyone has wasted their lives.

Oh PPS.... JACK, I'm sorry that you wasted your life so far. I'm sorry that you drink yourself into a near-stupor before posting. I'm sorry you haven't a fucking clue about how the world works and how to run your life. But some people are trying to have an intelligent conversation here, so I hope you'll forgive me if I ignore you from now on.

Granted Signy....

And I'll hope you'll forgive me for thinking the same of you since obviously, and even to your own words, the world is worse off since the late 1970's, of which I was born in '79. None of that could be my fault though. I was only born after you started working....

On a side note, I think I have a pretty good idea about how the world works, even though I don't like it. Even though I drink more than my share today, the fact that I own my house with no debt to bankers and have a 795 credit score would probably suggest to anyone I was trying to secure a loan with that I've got a pretty good idea how to run my own affairs. So what if I kill myself slowly on my own time? It's not as if I have a wife or kids who depend on me or I'm beating on. In fact, the sooner I'm gone, the sooner my brother who needs extra cash will be able to cash in on what I've made after Uncle Sam takes a huge bite out of it.....

I'm actually perfectly alright with the idea of you ignoring my posts from now on if that's what you'd like to do. I'm just hoping you don't go AWOL on us like Niki did when she said the same thing 6 months ago, but spoke of almost nothing but me as her reason for leaving in her farewell letter.

I know you won't. You've been here way longer than Niki.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 7:38 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

JACK, I was going to ignore you, but I'm going to give in to the facts that you're an attention hound and I like to give advice.

You say you know how to manage your life. And yet, you drink. You smoke. Your blood pressure is going up. You have no friendships to speak of, and no family life. Your have contributed (as far as I can tell) nothing to the rest of humanity, allieviated no suffering, fought for no justice. You have no connections to anybody except yourself. Your piece de resistance is that you own your own home.

Managing your life means having connections ... loving someone, fighting for something outside of yourself... taking care of your health, managing your habits. It's tough but that's what it means to be a grownup.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 8:06 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

MAL4- Indeed, spring is coming to parts of the tundra 700 hundred miles further to the north than before.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 10:01 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
JACK, I was going to ignore you, but I'm going to give in to the facts that you're an attention hound and I like to give advice.

You say you know how to manage your life. And yet, you drink. You smoke. Your blood pressure is going up. You have no friendships to speak of, and no family life. Your have contributed (as far as I can tell) nothing to the rest of humanity, allieviated no suffering, fought for no justice. You have no connections to anybody except yourself. Your piece de resistance is that you own your own home.

Managing your life means having connections ... loving someone, fighting for something outside of yourself... taking care of your health, managing your habits. It's tough but that's what it means to be a grownup.

Oh the inhumanity!

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Friday, March 15, 2013 10:04 AM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
MAL4- Indeed, spring is coming to parts of the tundra 700 hundred miles further to the north than before.

10's of millions of years before humans, ( that's before agriculture and the industrial revolution ) there were tropical plants at the poles.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, March 15, 2013 11:26 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Auraptor, can you understand that the earth's heating and cooling cycles typically last tens of thousands of years, and that for us to crank up the climate dial to an EXTREME VERY SUDDENLY might cause damage, destruction, havoc? Simply pointing out that the earth's climate has been extreme in the distant past doesn't mean that it will be harmless to change to it overnight.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 11:37 AM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

I don't know that the graph has got scarier, it just seems to me it's got much more robust (it should be noted that the two different graphs are two completely different methods of gauging temperature back in time, and they completely back each other up).

As CTS pointed out, the hockey stick needs a longer handle - temperature readings going far, far back in time - to be completely taken seriously. Now it's got that. This is the best view of it imo:

The grey line is the old hockey stick, the purple line is the new one. CTS is right, you can see the drastic temperature uptick more clearly with the bigger historical context.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 12:00 PM

America loves a winner!

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Auraptor, can you understand that the earth's heating and cooling cycles typically last tens of thousands of years, and that for us to crank up the climate dial to an EXTREME VERY SUDDENLY might cause damage, destruction, havoc? Simply pointing out that the earth's climate has been extreme in the distant past doesn't mean that it will be harmless to change to it overnight.

It's not personal. It's just war.

We don't have anywhere near enough data to conclusively say we're having any real, significant impact on global climate, or that if we are, it's even a bad thing.

Pollution control ? Hell yeah, I'm all in for that. China and India are big time guilty there, as well as other nations.

But carbon taxes and hysterical public policy aimed at counter acting AGW ? Madness.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Friday, March 15, 2013 12:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

KPO- I implore you not to engage rappy on this topic (and many others). You will only become frustrated, and any realistic conversation about the topic will be buried in mounds of rappy-crap.

Thank you!

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Friday, March 15, 2013 12:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
KPO- I implore you not to engage rappy on this topic (and many others). You will only become frustrated, and any realistic conversation about the topic will be buried in mounds of rappy-crap.

Thank you!

Hear hear!

Any post that starts: "But, Rappy, can't you understand--"

NO!!! No no no, he can't, and he never will. (is my interruption)

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Friday, March 15, 2013 1:16 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
KPO- I implore you not to engage rappy on this topic (and many others). You will only become frustrated, and any realistic conversation about the topic will be buried in mounds of rappy-crap.

Thank you!

Nah, rappy needs to be skewered every now and then. And I don't get frustrated with him, he just blows my mind.

Quote:
Any post that starts: "But, Rappy, can't you understand--"

Well I promise I'll never start a post like that.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 1:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Any post that starts: "But, Rappy, can't you understand--"

Well I promise I'll never start a post like that.

Scrolls up a few posts...

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Auraptor, can you understand that the earth's heating and cooling cycles...

Scratches head.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 2:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Okay, anyway, I was going to start a new thread on straight-line projection into the intermediate future, but honestly... too damn busy.

So what I see happening, in a nutshell, is the population rising, energy consumption going up, resources becoming progressively scarcer.

Oh, there will be movements to save this or that or another... marine preserves, "biogems", areas of unique biological or resource significance, but one by one they will be poached, mined, drilled, or drained out of existance. And what we don't actively pollute, bulldoze, or extract into oblivion will be killed off by rising temperatures, abnormal nitrogen deposition, and invasive species.

I see it already: monarch butterflies, which breed in the USA and Canada and winters in Mexico, have declined every year since we started measuring their numbers. People got on Mexico's case to preserve forests where the butterflies winter, and the government finally (finally!) stopped the illegal logging. But it didn't help, because farmers north of the border using Roundup are eliminating every smidgen of milkweed, which is the butterflies' larval food.

Honey bees, bats, frogs, butterflies, menhaden, trees ... all of the little threads on which our web depends are slowly being picked apart by relentless human activity.

Hubby and I were talking, as we sometimes do, about the fate of the world. He asked when people would wake up. Basically, I said that most people (not counting those like rappy) would wake up when serious deterioration becomes evident within their lifetime. Humans are simply not good at responding to generational changes. But IMHO it doesn't matter what "most" people think, because "most" people do not have a say in anything important. All you have to do is look at that link to wealth inequity in the USA

and realize that the power to effect change is distributed the same way. "Most" people wanting something means jack. People have to be concerned enough to challenge the pwoer structure, and we are decades away from that.

In the meantime, people will focus on the new Pope, or Obama, or American Idol (Idle), or the latest iPhone like it's something consequential.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 2:26 PM

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.

Quote:
Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:
Any post that starts: "But, Rappy, can't you understand--"

Well I promise I'll never start a post like that.

Scrolls up a few posts...

Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
Auraptor, can you understand that the earth's heating and cooling cycles...

Scratches head.

One's a whining plea, one's not.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Friday, March 15, 2013 2:37 PM