Off Topic And Now for Something Completely Different

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I watched Professor Brian Cox musing (if that is what professors do?) on the possibilities of life on another planet. My conclusion was possibly, maybe, dunno, in non professorial speak. But, his closing comment made me think. Not exact, something like...
If we are truly alone, we are unique in the universe, shouldn't we be taking better care of our home?
 
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Asterix said:
...
If we are truly alone, we are unique in the universe, shouldn't we be taking better care of our home?
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I'm not sure I see how us being alone in the universe would have any relevance on how we look after the planet to be honest. If we weren't alone, how would that help? Question for Brian obviously.
 
Anal Frank Fingers said:
Would it? Given we have been in an "ice age" for the last 10k years, i.e. all the way through the majority of the changes that made modern civilisation worldwide, moving from one state to another potentially causes us "difficulties".
I don't know much either, specially in terms of facts and figures: this popped up in YouTube which I thought was really interesting. My first reaction was this is brilliant, obviously, but then I was blown away when he said how much dust from the Sahara made it to South America.
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What would be the consequences of the earth not warming?

As I said, I don't really know much about this whole subject.
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I thought it was interesting too. No clue if it is factually correct, but for those not interested in watching it was primarily about reversing global warming with manageable low cost methodology by restoring the ocean ecosystem.
 
x said:
does anyone know of any climate change predictions that have come true?

questioning things at the mo. thanks for your time.
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All of the predictions are unfortunately coming true. Ice caps are retreating, sea levels are rising, permafrost is melting, oceans are becoming more acidic, droughts are increasing in intensity and length, wildfires are increasing and they're over a larger range (even in the Artic circle), storms are increasing in number and strength, and high temperature records are being broken worldwide continuously.

None of this is new news, either. The effects of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere were first described in 1856 by an American scientist named Eunice Foote. In 1861 Irish scientist John Tyndall ran further experiments and confirmed Foote's findings. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, calculated that “the temperature in the Arctic regions would rise 8 or 9 degrees Celsius if carbon dioxide increased to 2.5 or 3 times”. He underestimated and also had no idea how much we would ramp up release of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. So we've been ignoring the scientists on this for over 160 years.

Not to worry, though, there's nothing we can do about it now, the cat's out of the bag. To stay anywhere near the goal of limiting further warming to 1.5 degrees, we'd have to leave half of all currently known reserves of fossil fuels in the ground. In reality, we're looking to increase production and we're looking for more. Because money. Short term gain, long time pain.

Hope this helps!
 
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Des Head said:
All of the predictions are unfortunately coming true. Ice caps are retreating, sea levels are rising, permafrost is melting, oceans are becoming more acidic, droughts are increasing in intensity and length, wildfires are increasing and they're over a larger range (even in the Artic circle), storms are increasing in number and strength, and high temperature records are being broken worldwide continuously.

None of this is new news, either. The effects of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere were first described in 1856 by an American scientist named Eunice Foote. In 1861 Irish scientist John Tyndall ran further experiments and confirmed Foote's findings. In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, calculated that “the temperature in the Arctic regions would rise 8 or 9 degrees Celsius if carbon dioxide increased to 2.5 or 3 times”. He underestimated and also had no idea how much we would ramp up release of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels. So we've been ignoring the scientists on this for over 160 years.

Not to worry, though, there's nothing we can do about it now, the cat's out of the bag. To stay anywhere near the goal of limiting further warming to 1.5 degrees, we'd have to leave half of all currently known reserves of fossil fuels in the ground. In reality, we're looking to increase production and we're looking for more. Because money. Short term gain, long time pain.

Hope this helps!
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That is a matter of big debate among the wider atmospheric science community, and that's before the conversation on the likely effectiveness, and massive costs of the proposed 'solutions'. :emoticon-0105-wink:
 
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DMD said:
That is a matter of big debate among the wider atmospheric science community, and that's before the conversation on the likely effectiveness, and massive costs of the proposed 'solutions'. :emoticon-0105-wink:
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Which ones aren't coming true, just out of interest? I'm too lazy to look.

Also, why is reducing global warming a bad thing as you suggested earlier? You didn't answer.
 
Anal Frank Fingers said:
Sorry, my mistake. You didn't.



So why is global warming a good thing?

I sound like I'm picking here, but I really am interested in both sides of the debate.
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It isn't necessarily a good thing either, it's simply a natural event that has occurred in cycles since the earth was formed, and created the environment that was essential to the creation of life on this planet.

The current debate is around the rate of that change and the potential consequences, which are not currently scientific facts, although they are often claimed to be.

My view is that the debate has been focused on the wrong premise, and that is liable to lead to wrong, and expensive 'solutions', which are likely to replace one problem with another.

A more productive way would be to recognise the natural cycle, and build in measures to mitigate for the likely changes, and at the same time, minimise the extraction of natural resources, and emissions to the environment.
 
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DMD said:
It isn't necessarily a good thing either, it's simply a natural event that has occurred in cycles since the earth was formed, and created the environment that was essential to the creation of life on this planet.

The current debate is around the rate of that change and the potential consequences, which are not currently scientific facts, although they are often claimed to be.

My view is that the debate has been focused on the wrong premise, and that is liable to lead to wrong, and expensive 'solutions', which are likely to replace one problem with another.

A more productive way would be to recognise the natural cycle, and build in measures to mitigate for the likely changes, and at the same time, minimise the extraction of natural resources, and emissions to the environment.
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Thanks for this. I've just informed the scientific community that a distinguished City fan on a popular forum has rendered their work pointless. They hadn't even considered natural events that occur in cycles. They feel so stupid. Should be a big announcement tomorrow that everything's going to be totally fine and we can ignore basic physics in future.

As you were everybody! Three cheers for Dutch!
 
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Des Head said:
Thanks for this. I've just informed the scientific community that a distinguished City fan on a popular forum has rendered their work pointless. They hadn't even considered natural events that occur in cycles. They feel so stupid. Should be a big announcement tomorrow that everything's going to be totally fine and we can ignore basic physics in future.

As you were everybody! Three cheers for Dutch!
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You may find that many of them agree with what I posted. You could look into many of those whose work was then summarised in the IPPC reports. :emoticon-0105-wink:
 
i'm considerably bothered, as was the case with covid-19, as has been the case recently in several other cases, that "fact" checking is leading to bans from social media and other places that don't like anyone to disagree with some agenda or other. banning of experienced doctors over c19 appeared eff all to do with science and entirely based on politics/money and ideological c*ntery. the recent setting up of, effectively, a ministry for "information" in the usa is particularly concerning (fortunately it appears to have collapsed already) given the previous history of countries (china,ussr, east germany to name just a few) that suppress speech and alternative views. I already have massive trust problems with the media, politicians, and most other large organisations.

anyway, thanks for your replies..
 
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x said:
i'm considerably bothered, as was the case with covid-19, as has been the case recently in several other cases, that "fact" checking is leading to bans from social media and other places that don't like anyone to disagree with some agenda or other. banning of experienced doctors over c19 appeared eff all to do with science and entirely based on politics/money and ideological c*ntery. the recent setting up of, effectively, a ministry for "information" in the usa is particularly concerning (fortunately it appears to have collapsed already) given the previous history of countries (china,ussr, east germany to name just a few) that suppress speech and alternative views. I already have massive trust problems with the media, politicians, and most other large organisations.

anyway, thanks for your replies..
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**** me. What really? Like some sort of global conspiracy?
 
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