World finally agrees that global warming threatens everyone (1 Viewer)

[talon_dfa]

The IPCC say this :-
Roughly 20-30% of species are likely to be at high risk of irreversible extinction if the global average temperature rises by 1.5-2.5C beyond 1990 levels....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm Colin

A bleak, but probably a realistic estimate (20-30%)...

It could be argued that this percentage of species is likely to become extinct due to human population growth and land use changes. Global warming or not.

The acidity from increased CO2 is more likely to influence more species (esp in aquatic and marine systems) than warming.

(Interesting that increased acidity will actually decrease global warming).

"News" reported a new study yesterday...
Study claims that "pine trees" (assume they meant conifers) trap sunlight and add to global warming.

By the way, doesn't everyone know that extinction is irreversible? Is the IPCC statment meant to inform or sensationalize?

 

[abagguley]

By the way, doesn't everyone know that extinction is irreversible?

He, he. Try telling that to Michael Crichton. Perhaps they just meant to emphasise that it's not just local extinction, which could be rectified at a later date by re-introduction. Or perhaps it's just an unnecessary tautology (d'ya see what I did, there?).

Adrian

 

[talon_dfa]

What I'd like to know is:.

If we, man, stopped producing any more carbon dixide, or even reversed the amount we produce to 1980's level.
Will it make a difference?

And I don't like the way that the words "may, could, probably" are used describing the effects of GW.
Why don't the experts use the word "Will "?

IF that happened, people would take notice!.

Alan:

Science deals with data analysis in terms of probability (statistics). A well designed study can detect small differences between sets of data. Claims about those differences are made in terms of probability.

examples (simplistic but hopefully instructive):
Group A (or year A) is larger than Group B (p <.001 - which basically means that there is a 1 in a 1000 chance that we are wrong - highly likely that we are correct).

What if the probability were less? (p<.05 - means that there is a 1 in 20 chance that we are wrong - evidence as not as strong as 1st example - would you bet the farm on 20:1?).

Global warming/climate change studies are no different except that they also have to predict values into the future by using models.

(Seen any good models that let you predict future stock prices? If so, let me know. I would be happy if the weatherman were a little more accurate).

Scientist are unlikely to use stronger language about probability of current models than something like "highly likely or highly unlikely". Since the current descriptions are more like "may" or "suggests", that tells us the data are not fitting well with the models.

Current models do not predict past data very well, so there is not high confidence in their ability to predict the future.

For the world to truly agree...
The models will have to show the likelihood of change is highly significant.

 

[talon_dfa]

He, he. Try telling that to Michael Crichton. Perhaps they just meant to emphasise that it's not just local extinction, which could be rectified at a later date by re-introduction. Or perhaps it's just an unnecessary tautology (d'ya see what I did, there?).

Adrian

Good Point.

But you are using big words for the "sheep shag army".

 

[alan_rymer]

Alan:

Science deals with data analysis in terms of probability (statistics). A well designed study can detect small differences between sets of data. Claims about those differences are made in terms of probability.

examples (simplistic but hopefully instructive):
Group A (or year A) is larger than Group B (p <.001 - which basically means that there is a 1 in a 1000 chance that we are wrong - highly likely that we are correct).

What if the probability were less? (p<.05 - means that there is a 1 in 20 chance that we are wrong - evidence as not as strong as 1st example - would you bet the farm on 20:1?).

Global warming/climate change studies are no different except that they also have to predict values into the future by using models.

(Seen any good models that let you predict future stock prices? If so, let me know. I would be happy if the weatherman were a little more accurate).

Scientist are unlikely to use stronger language about probability of current models than something like "highly likely or highly unlikely". Since the current descriptions are more like "may" or "suggests", that tells us the data are not fitting well with the models.

Current models do not predict past data very well, so there is not high confidence in their ability to predict the future.

For the world to truly agree...
The models will have to show the likelihood of change is highly significant.

OK. That explains that. But the scientists are not explaining to other scientists,but to the general none scientific dumbed public

Well if they cant say" Its going to happen". Why not its 95% certain its going to happen? ( or is that too positive a statement? ).

Or is it that they think it might happen, which will be confirmed when it does, or something else thats currently missing from the equasions is found that will make the the statements more or less valid?.

 

[dafi]

jees round and around we go same old crap ,denial and repudeation of the facts. suport of the discredited non warming theories. it seems that 0.1% of the scientists are suported by 40% of the posters while 99% of the scientific comunity dissagree. Pepole it is hapening. whats more its happening NOW.The climate is going down the toilet. We are in the throws of a massive global extintion event. Its not happening in a geological time frame its happening in a human life time ,time frame and all this smacks of fiddles and rome. Its time to wake up and smell the coffee and that may not be fast enough cos that noise in the air is the bus leaving. IT IS HAPPENING ITS HAPPENING NOW . DEAL WITH IT

 

[Jos Stratford]

jees round and around we go.... all this smacks of fiddles and rome. Its time to wake up and smell the coffee and that may not be fast enough cos that noise in the air is the bus leaving.

And, once we've woken and smelt your coffee, what do you suggest as the solution ...fix obligatory targets that force other environmental concerns to be ignored? Plaster your Orkneys with windfarms, chop down the Amazon to provide land for biofuels, chop down all the boreal forests too cos they are guilty as hell too. Whilst at it, let's just bore half the population to pieces just enough to turn them off environmental issues as a matter of course, ban all flying regardless of impacts it has on other issues. Yep right, let's wake up and smell that coffee.

 

[dafi]

mayby if we stoped wasting energy scoring points of each other and making stupid sugestions.mayby if we stoped wasting energy digging holes so deep that we cant see out. Maby if we stoped wasting energy running around in circles. i dont pretend to have the soloutions if indeed there are any. I reckon we can only try to adapt to what is on the way and something bad IS on its way. Porrit is right when he says its all ready to late. any one for a quick fiddle tune!

 

[Jos Stratford]

mayby if we stoped wasting energy scoring points of each other and making stupid sugestions.

It's a stupid suggestion, well that is exactly what is happening - the E.U. last month made it an obligation to achieve renewable targets ...that directly translates into sliced raptors, plenty of other sliced things and an industrialization of the rural environment. Bush went to South America last month to pursue his latest fad on biofuels, that directly translates into more habitat disappearing under monoculture, etc etc etc. Headlines talk about nothing but the need to push renewable energy (and rarely, if ever, raise the negatives involved in these). So-called greens cry loudly about the need to curb air travel, regardless that it is a relatively small contributor to CO2 levels, yet how often do you hear calls to curb bigger contributing factors (start with the losses due to food wastage, CO2 down the drain for no purpose). Is it that these factors might actually hit them or are they just ignorant to these?

Some brainbox now hits the headlines revamping the idea that the boreal forests are net contributors to global warming, warning that carbon offsets should not be used to reforest in temperate or high latitudes. Next step, this notion becomes popular and reforesting becomes a non-issue ...regardless of the wider environmental cost.

If we want to protect a world, I'd prefer to see one worth protecting, not one destroyed in the process of being protected. But if that's a stupid suggestion, then so be it.

PS. also interesting that many of these so-called greens also oppose nuclear power, perhaps the only real alternative to carbon-based or destructive renewable alternatives

 

[Osprey_watcher]

So even after all the discussions you've been involved in and seen on here, and all the evidence you've (and others have) been shown, you're still not in the least bit convinced?

Not totally convinced that we are as implicated as a lot of people think. Climate change has been happening since the planet was formed and is going to happen whatever we do.
Yes we do have some impact on what's happening, I'm not convinced that our contribution is as big as is being implied.
But whatever I think is immaterial. People all over the world have their own lifestyles and it will be impossible to get them to change so drastically it would make a difference.

 

[Tyke]

We are in the throws of a massive global extintion event.

No we're not

... nuclear power, perhaps the only real alternative to carbon-based or destructive renewable alternatives

Yes

Colin

 

[dafi]

oh yes we are!

 

[ceasar]

One problem is that CO2 comes from alot of sources we can't control. Go to Wikipedia.org and enter CO2 and click on the first item "Origins." It's a general overview, hardly the last word on the subject, but you will see that we as humans don't have alot of wiggle room in controlling it. For instance, I read somewhere recently (can't remember where) that one Volcano going off in Indonesia can put more CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere than all the internal combustion engines have put there since its invention.

Bob

 

[Chris Monk]

Polar bear woes wakens US to global warming

Polar bear woes wakens US to global warming

Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...GAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/04/11/ngreen111.xml

By Tom Leonard in New York

Last Updated: 1:12am BST 11/04/2007

The plight of the Alaskan polar bear has attracted an unprecedented response to an environmental issue by the American public.

The US government has received more than 500,000 comments on a recent proposal that it give the bears extra protection from the effects on their environment on suspected global warming.

Conservation groups and federal wildlife officials said yesterday that they were heartened by the response in a country traditionally seen as environmentally apathetic.

The federal Fish and Wildlife Service said that email comments alone topped the half million mark.

A spokesman anticipated that the vast majority were from Americans with most in favour of giving the bears "threatened" status in a country where many dispute there is any basis for global warming.

Dirk Kempthorne, the US interior secretary, proposed in December that the animals be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. Monday was the deadline for the public to comment.

Conservationists hope, and Alaskan businesses fear, that designating polar bears as threatened will carry a huge economic cost, forcing federal agencies to consider the effect on them before granting permits that would increase greenhouse gas emissions.

The Fish and Wildlife Service said it wouldn’t disagree with conservation group claims that their supporters alone provided 500,000 responses to the proposal. “It’s certainly evidence of a large degree of public concern about the issues, on one side or the other,” said a government spokesman. “It’s pretty heartening. “People in public office always open their ears to responses like this to see which way public opinion is drifting.”

A spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council, an American conservation group, said: “To think that so many Americans took the time to let their feelings be known is very encouraging. I think we can finally say that Americans care and they care deeply.”

 

[Chris Monk]

Global warming threatens bird extinction

Global warming threatens bird extinction

Posted: 10 Apr 2007

http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3002

Global warming threatens many bird species with extinction due to climatic changes and the loss of the habitats they depend on for survival according to the new report on Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

The analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also found that an important way to mitigate the impacts of global warming is to protect existing forest and grassland and wetland habitats, which store carbon and provide essential habitat for imperiled wildlife.

“Two of Earth’s most serious environmental problems, global warming and the loss of species, have a common solution: stopping the loss of Earth’s forests and other natural carbon fixing habitats,” said George Fenwick, President of American Bird Conservancy. “Fully 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions result from deforestation.”

The IPCC report found that between 20 to 30 percent of all species are threatened by an increased risk of extinction if average temperatures increase more than 1.5-2.5°C. For example, the US administers some of the most diverse seabird colonies in the world in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands and Remote Pacific Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Many of the sites will disappear with sea level rise.

The by-product of a global programme to reduce greenhouse emissions through forest conservation would be the protection of large numbers of Earth’s threatened species as well as the preservation of ecosystem services such as watersheds, and potentially, the generation of significant new revenue from carbon sequestration to help alleviate poverty in developing nations.

Avoided deforestation by providing payments to countries or projects that protect existing forest, can be financed by carbon taxes, a global trust fund, or by carbon credits purchased by polluters to offset emissions, says Fenwick.

“Wildlife will be negatively affected by some of the proposed solutions to the global warming challenge,” he added. “Biofuel production from corn and wind turbines require careful thought and planning to ensure that endangered birds and other species are not put at additional risk.”


American Bird Conservancy, April 9. 2007

 

[Chris Monk]

Snowy forests 'increase warming'

Snowy forests 'increase warming'

BBC News web site

The report suggests deforestation is not always harmful

Planting trees in snowy areas may worsen global warming as their canopies absorb sunlight which would otherwise be reflected by the snow, a study says.

The report in US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says the pine forests of Europe, Siberia and Canada may contribute to warming.

Only tropical forests effectively cool the earth by absorbing carbon dioxide and creating clouds, the report says.

But the report's authors stress they are not advocating chopping down trees.

They say forests are a valuable resource and remain vital for bio-diversity, providing a home for animals and plants.

'Lively discussion'

Scientists have long argued that planting and preserving forests helps reduce global warming because trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to oxygen.

Trees also absorb water from the ground, helping to form clouds that shield the earth from sunlight.

But the report's findings, discussed last year at an American Geophysical Union meeting and now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest planting forests indiscriminately may be counter-productive.


Rainforests do help stop global warming, the report says

"Our new study shows that only tropical rainforests are strongly beneficial in helping slow down global warming," Govindasamy Bala of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory says.

In cooler areas of the earth, tree cover helps store sunlight reflected by snow on the ground and this "cancels or exceeds" the net cooling effect, Mr Bala told the AFP news agency.

Another author of the report, Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution, said the report suggested it is "more important to preserve and restore tropical forests than had been previously realised".

But, he told the Associated Press news agency, he was "a little concerned about this being misapplied as an excuse to chop down the forests in the name of saving the environment".

Computer models produced by the report's authors suggested deforestation in higher latitudes could reduce global warming.

Steven W Running, a professor of ecology at the University of Montana, praised the report's authors for "sparking a lively scientific discussion".

But Mr Running, who was not involved in the report, said it was too early to base policy on the report's conclusion that certain types of reforestation might be counter-productive.

 

[KCMcgee]

And, once we've woken and smelt your coffee, what do you suggest as the solution ...fix obligatory targets that force other environmental concerns to be ignored? Plaster your Orkneys with windfarms, chop down the Amazon to provide land for biofuels, chop down all the boreal forests too cos they are guilty as hell too. Whilst at it, let's just bore half the population to pieces just enough to turn them off environmental issues as a matter of course, ban all flying regardless of impacts it has on other issues. Yep right, let's wake up and smell that coffee.

Good posting.

There is a hysteria sweeping environmentalism that is too eager to destroy existing ecologies....not intentionally but because of ignorance. Some so-called solutions such as windfarms, which won't make a mote on a dot as any solution, are almost a farce. This idea that doing 'something' is better than doing 'nothing'....when actually it can degrade natural environments even more.

Each month China adds more fossil fuel generated energy production than the combined total wind produced energy of the world.

 

[dafi]

I dont agree with a lot of what you say at times KC but your right enough here. Micro generation is the way forward for the domestic supply at least on indvidual houses. the mass generation of electric from wind will never be enough and the enviromental cost is way to high.

 

[nirofo]

So even after all the discussions you've been involved in and seen on here, and all the evidence you've (and others have) been shown, you're still not in the least bit convinced?

I think what he means is that there is global warming, that's not in dispute, but where is it proven that the efforts of man are causing it. Whilst there may be a contributing factor from man, it's more likely that the world is going through one of it's many cyles which we are totally incapable of preventing, it will probably happen anyway regardless of our arrogance in believing we have caused it.

Global warming threatens many bird species with extinction due to climatic changes and the loss of the habitats they depend on for survival according to the new report on Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

I think man threatens bird species and many more lifeforms on this world due to his constant destruction of habitat, far more than global warming. Global warming doesn't chop down the forests, drain the marshes, plough up the flow bogs etc. There appears to be a blind belief that building windfarms on prime environmentally sensitive areas and in the feeding and wintering areas of many species, is justified if it's in the name of reducing global warming. It's already been said, China alone is producing more CO2 in one day than the total amount of windfarms in the world can reduce, (they don't reduce it anyway).

nirofo.

 

[Osprey_watcher]

I think what he means is that there is global warming, that's not in dispute, but where is it proven that the efforts of man are causing it. Whilst there may be a contributing factor from man, it's more likely that the world is going through one of it's many cyles which we are totally incapable of preventing, it will probably happen anyway regardless of our arrogance in believing we have caused it.



I think man threatens bird species and many more lifeforms on this world due to his constant destruction of habitat, far more than global warming. Global warming doesn't chop down the forests, drain the marshes, plough up the flow bogs etc. There appears to be a blind belief that building windfarms on prime environmentally sensitive areas and in the feeding and wintering areas of many species, is justified if it's in the name of reducing global warming. It's already been said, China alone is producing more CO2 in one day than the total amount of windfarms in the world can reduce, (they don't reduce it anyway).

nirofo.

Thank you, that is exactly what I meant. Must not be very good at putting my point over clearly.
As for windfarms, IMO it is just the government trying to look like it is doing something, even thouhg they know it doesnt really do any good. The vast majority of the popuation in this country wont know the science behind it and will be brainwashed into thinking they are doing something to tackle CO2 emissions.
It's a bit like the waste recycling in my home town. We all now have three bins and two plastic bags to seperate our waste. But when it gets to the rubbish tip it all goes in one pile because the local council doesn't have the money for the equipment needed. the bins are to meet government targets.
But not a lot of people know this and think they doing something to help the environment.