Global Warming

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piggy

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observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html

According to the article...European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
 
Articles such as this do no favours to those trying to get rational discussion of the real problems of global warming.

If Britain experiences a Siberian climate, the corollary will almost certainly be a fall in sea levels, not a rise. Anyway, the most pessimistic predictions of sea-levels predict a ten foot rise over something like a century: how many European cities will be 'sunk beneath the sea' by that? Two?

'Abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy'. True. Heavy rain tomorrow could cause a lot of flooding. But how likely is it?

Pat
 
Articles such as this do no favours to those trying to get rational discussion of the real problems of global warming

I agree (with a lot of that), but it's interesting to note that this report supposedly came out of the Pentagon of all places!!

Some senior climatologists seem to be backing the report too...
Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.

...but perhaps because they want the US to start taking climate change more seriously period.

While I might not believe all of the data in the report,according to the article, I do think that overstating climate change is better than understating it.
 
It would be interesting to know what brief was given to the authors and what terms of reference were used. If the brief was "What's the worst possible outcome we can expect from global warming" then this report can be more or less disregarded. Many think tanks and government bodies commission reports of that nature as discussion documents so that they can formulate policy on how to react to disasters.

The issue of global warming is very real but a "Day after tomorrow" type scenario is not plausible. The real solution will come when oil becomes too expensive and we are forced to invest in a renewable alternative.
As for Britain getting a Siberian type climate; this would/will happen when sea temperatures rise causing the Gulf Stream to move northwards. This will result in the warm waters melting the polar ice caps. That cold water will then run down through the north sea and cause average temperatures in Britain and Ireland in particular and northern Europe in general to drop by an average of a couple of degrees a year.
We are at about the same longitude as Siberia and it is only the warm waters of the gulf stream and the warm air that goes with it that gives us our temperate maritime climate and protects us from a more continental climate.

The issue of sea level rises has more to do with water expanding as it gets hotter than ice caps melting.
Anyway, the most pessimistic predictions of sea-levels predict a ten foot rise over something like a century: how many European cities will be 'sunk beneath the sea' by that? Two?
Click to expand...
Holland is screwed, as are many of the port cities around Europe. 3 Meter sea level rises will displace around a billion people worldwide (enfo office in Dublin). This has to have a huge effect on the economies of the first world, not to mention their security.
Most of the crops that are being grown now in the first world and to an increasing extent in the third world are from selected genetic stocks. This means that they will not have the variation in genetic strains to adapt to climate change over a short period. The areas of the world where our cereal crops originate, and still grow wild, are shrinking as genetically selected and sometimes modified crops are grown instead so we are throwing away the building blocks that we could use to grow strains of crops for the future.
All sorts of diseases that we in northern Europe have never seen before will affect us as bacteria and insects move north into newly hot areas.

All pleasant thoughts, eh?
 
wine cellar safe for time being

Brendan McWilliams (meteorologist) wrote about this in his column in the Irish Times. He said that what takes place in 3 days in the film would more realistically take place over 300 years. That reassured me!
 
Blair's speech

It's interesting to note that Blair will make a speech today on a "green industrial revolution" if it is to avert a climate catastrophe throughout the world.

www.sky.com/skynews/artic...57,00.html

"He will add that up to 100 million people could be threatened by the end of the century by an 88 centimetre rise in sea levels.

And with freak weather patterns appearing to become more frequent, Mr Blair will urge for swift action.

"We cannot afford to ignore the warnings," Mr Blair will say"
 
Bull****

First purple - stick to the history, here is a short geography lesson:

a) Siberia is by no means on the same longtitude as us

b) By and large it is much farther north in terms of latitude, which I presume you meant.

c) Gulf Stream is only a small part of the mild climate we have. The fact is that the specific heat of water is much higher than that of land so the sea cools and heats much more slowly than land. There is nowhere in the world were the sea has the same effect as continental land masses, which this bizarre theory of the Gulf stream going walk-about is positing.

Now piggy - typical, you buy this hysterical scaremongering but not the terrorist threat - which we see every day and not in some vivid sci fi imagination. You make no bones why you prefer this scare story - it is anti American and anti Bush.

Reminder of previous popular apocalyptic theories:

1) the fifties - within 50 years the temperate zones (Europe that is) will not be able to feed their populations - outcome: beef mountains and wine lakes - tropical zones seem to be getting even worse.

2) the sixties - the population explosion, we would be living 1 person to a postage stamp by the year 2000 - way off beam

3) the eighties - AIDS would be an epidemic of Black Death proportions - good for insurance premium hikes but again completely off the wall.

Horan (Marathon Man) has more credibility than these crackpot so called scientists.
 
you dismiss Blair as a SCI-FI fanatic!

I'm not even going to bother dealing with your crap and hangups YD. If you want to discuss terrorism and America go elsewhere to do it. It was dealing with you and the racist brigade which has put me off discussing that issue.

As for AIDS NOT being an epidemic...I suggest you Google for some figures.
 
I'm not even going to bother dealing with your crap and hang

Nice 1 Piggy, your debating skills are well honed. Don't get a job in diplomace or we will have WW3.

Other people should not have a point of view especially if you view it as extreme.

People like you start wars because you are unwilling to listen to others point of view.

When a certain side are so arrogant that they refuse to listen to others (labelling them as fanatics, extremists, jews, arabs, communist, black, white, etc) then we end up with pograms and wars, etc.

People like you are the real warmongers in the world.
 
Ho Hum

Now, now, piggy remember the guidelines - no personal attacks. :D

This was billed as a topic on global warming, but coming from you I was not a bit surprised that your opener swept in terrorism and Dubya.

A bit rich for you to accuse me of introducing that distraction.
 
Re: I'm not even going to bother dealing with your crap and

aha,

This thread is about Global Warming and climate change - not war. If you want to discuss that or me I suggest you open a new thread to do so.

I re-opened this debate because it has very much moved into the forefront of political debate.
 
Re: Ho Hum

The original article mentions terrorism. I did not mention it and I don't think it's that important a measure of how seriously we should take this issue. I mentioned America as it has a huge role in emissions etc. I'm not interested in discussing George Bush.
 
Global Warming Climate Change and Measures to Take

Hi piggy,

For a slow debate on the merits or other wise of the proposed carbon tax look here:

I have suggested that the general discussion on Climate Change and Global Warming should continue in LOS.

However I suggest that discussions concerning the proposed Carbon Tax should continue in the Great Financial Debates above the line.

What do you think?

ajapale
 
Re: Global Warming Climate Change and Measures to Take

Hi ajapale,

That's an interesting discussion. Yes, it would be good to keep the two debates separate - financial and non-financial.
 
Reality check

As for Britain getting a Siberian type climate; this would/will happen when sea temperatures rise causing the Gulf Stream to move northwards. This will result in the warm waters melting the polar ice caps. That cold water will then run down through the north sea and cause average temperatures in Britain and Ireland in particular and northern Europe in general to drop by an average of a couple of degrees a year.
Click to expand...
This is surely a wind up, purple. Let's see, the GS melts the PIC, the cold waters flow down (after all the North Pole is higher up than us) and gives us the Siberian brass monkeys. At least one thing doesn't gel here. The coldest that water can be is zero but temps in Siberia fall to minus forty.
 
eh?

"The coldest that water can be is zero"

yeh, after that it's ice. Icebergs, icefloes, land covered by ice, ice age...........Rain falls as snow and sleet........ a few degrees makesa lot of difference to what vegetation will grow. Rise in sea level due to melting of the polar ice caps means less land, surrounded by colder water, rained on by snow...... Brrrrr! I'm going to put a coat on. :)
 
Strange physic science

In a post above some uninformed person says that the Siberian climate which will come over Britain will cause the sea level to drop.The opposite would be the case .Water increases in volume when it gets colder than 4 degrees,especially when it turns into ice and therefore displaces the water,the sea level will rise when the surface freezes.Basic physics,kindergarden age group 4. Put a bottle of lemonade into the freezer.
 
Re: eh?

Water can be cooled below zero - [broken link removed].

It has numerous [broken link removed] besides the density maximum at 4°C that everyone has heard of.
e.g. The weird Mpemba effect - it is possible to freeeze hot water more quickly than cold water.
 
Ireland is roughly the same latitude as Siberia.

Ireland is roughly the same latitude as Siberia. Take away the warming influence of the North Atantic Drift and replace it with something cooler then the result is something like a Siberian Cimate in Ireland.
 
Siberia is kinda big

According to my map, the Arctic circle runs roughly 2/3rds the way up Siberia. I guess there are southern bits on our latitude but it is somewhat stretching reality to say Siberia, in general, is at the same latitude as us.
 
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