Climate change, global warming & the environment

This is a seperate thread with reference to a comment from Rick D in the Ari for president thread.

Below is a link to the National Snow and Ice Center in Amercia that records summer ice levels in the Arctic. It's pretty clear from this information that the pace of metling in the north polar region has reversed in the last two years. 2009 was up over 900000 square km on 2007 and 2008 was up 500000 square km on the 2007 record low. It would seem that scientist do not consider this 2 year reverse of trend to be a sign that Ice melt has bottomed out.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

It's interesting that this second increase in summer ice has gone virtually un-reported. Whichever side of the enviromental debate you are on the more information in the public domain enables more people to have an informed opinion.

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Re: Summer Ice Levels

It's your fault for creating the Gravel Trap !!!

Re: Summer Ice Levels

Yeah, its in some advert the BBC is showing for (I think) the Today programme.

The population levels are quite simply unsustainable. One way or another, this will be an issue that will get sorted out. I think it is better if we sort it out ourselves as a race rather than wait for disease/war/famine/massive disaster (take your pick) before anything is done. It is very easy to curb population, it just takes forsight and guts to do. All we need to do is limit the number of births, then within a generation, we can bring things down to a sustainable level. The other thing we need to do in this regard is to help countries out of poverty, we can then state that if they really want help, they will agree to limit their population.

Not too difficult methinks..

Re: Summer Ice Levels

Maybe this explains why Lotus are relocating to Malaya in the next couple of years

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They probably get as much rain there as they do in Norfolk though..

Re: Summer Ice Levels

Since this is our global climate thread, with the current series of earthquakes in SE Asia, i wonder if the Big Boy is warming up?

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Well, its still growing, but not big enough yet to go off big time. It has a few hundred years of growing yet at least.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldne ... dlier.html

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Whether we are effecting climate or not is far beyond the wit of man to calculate. I'd be the first one to say down with big oil but the case for carbon dioxide causing positive feedback loops is that of a straw man IMO.

Given that you can look back at the early paleozoic, cambrian era and see atmospheric co2 levels around 20 times (roughly 7000ppm) the levels of today, suffice to say if their positive feedback model had and credibility, then none of us would be here today to argue the toss. I'd love to see some studies on what natural processes could cause the co2 levels to drop to the historical lows of this era over the course of 600m years, but alas, researches would get their funding cut if they dared look at such a subject in the current 'climate'.

Though i did find a really fascinating study by NASA which showed that when plants are moved into a atmosphere of much greater co2 levels, their photosynthesizing efficiency goes through the roof. Now given that both the ocean & land plant life is the natural co2 sink of the planet, I dont think its beyond credulity to consider the possibility that there is a natural symbiosis between the co2 sources and co2 sinks, one that i dare say is capable of dealing with much higher co2 levels than we will ever achieve from burning fossil fuel.

Re: Summer Ice Levels

I dunno, it depends whether you think 6billion is alot for the planet, when you read some media reports, anyone would think we are not going to be able to walk in a straight line without bumping into each other soon enough. However as far as biomass goes we could be considered pretty small fry compared to some.

For instance, just looking at the biomass wiki, Antartic Krill take up more room than us by a ratio of 5:1, even though they themselves only account for ~0.7% of the world's total. Meaning we are in the 0.14% range. Or look at it another way, In order for humans to take up the same biomass as ants, we would need to increase the human population to around half a trillion people. And then when you look at the amount taken up by plant life, well safe to say all other life on this planet is left in the shade if you will excuse the pun

So as far as resources to stop people starving to death, I think other animals are proving there is more than enough to go around, I believe its more about who holds the keys to the food cupboard personally. As long as a load of corrupt, power hungry nutters run pretty much every country on the planet, you will continue to see the engineering of shortages that shouldnt be so.

As far the resources for luxuries go, the main one being fossil fuels, i really dont think they have much puff left in them, certainly i would be suprised if they were still being used when im old an grey. The website 'theoildrum' gives lots of brilliant statistics on the very real falling off a cliff that reserves are going through at the moment, at the rate we are using the oil, we will have to go 100% renewable in my lifetime, or we can go the way of the dinosaurs.

But the use of oil, like food resources is another engineered fallacy, its an archaic form of energy that we havent needed for a century, oil being finite is the very reason they have for trading it, because they make more money that way. In any event I'd still put good money that we will stop using it long before we could have any negative effects on this planet, im more concerned with whats going on with something that really effects our climate, that big yellow fire ball that one rarely gets to see in Wales

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Well its a false dichotomy to presume we will just because we can when it comes to population growth. The actual irony of it all is that in 1st world countries where resources are plentiful, the population levels have stagnated, so this likening of the human race to a swarm of locust devouring and multiplying out of control is a weak one IMO, yes the population has grown over the years, but to automatically equate that to something negative seems to be to be a huge over simplification of the issue.

I firmly believe that resourcing issues are not down to a lack of the possibility to produce, rather it is a lack of honesty, lack of will on the part of our representatives and truly woeful infrastructure. Speaking of farming, you just have to look at how its playing out, more and more farmers are having to hang up their boots every year, yet the ones that do survive are still having to drop their prices to compete.

So which is more likely, that these specific markets are magically defying all economic precedents, or is it that every law passed, every nod, every bit of spare funding always seems to fall on the side of large corporations. How much land does Tesco now have, which they have no intention of using, just because they are allowed to do as they please.

South Africa was another good example, where economic apartheid is as real today as is was decades ago. Here you had white farmer producing, having de-skilled all of the african natives, then when farms were given back to those who laid claim on them, no attempt was made whatsoever to re-skill. So they managed to turn an immoral agricultural success into a moral wasteland. All because the government didnt then, and still dont have the foresight to give people the appropriate skills, so a resource problem, but not because its impossible, but because of the lack of honesty, will and infrastructure.

TBY couple of meaty looking sunspots started flairing up last month, the SOHO images are brill, for your viewing pleasure: