Guardian UK: 100 months to save the world?

[marmar]

The final countdown
Time is fast running out to stop irreversible climate change, a group of global warming experts warns today. We have only 100 months to avoid disaster. Andrew Simms explains why we must act now - and where to begin

Andrew Simms
The Guardian, Friday August 1 2008




If you shout "fire" in a crowded theatre, when there is none, you understand that you might be arrested for irresponsible behaviour and breach of the peace. But from today, I smell smoke, I see flames and I think it is time to shout. I don't want you to panic, but I do think it would be a good idea to form an orderly queue to leave the building.

Because in just 100 months' time, if we are lucky, and based on a quite conservative estimate, we could reach a tipping point for the beginnings of runaway climate change. That said, among people working on global warming, there are countless models, scenarios, and different iterations of all those models and scenarios. So, let us be clear from the outset about exactly what we mean.

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth's atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a "tipping point" - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control.

Faced with circumstances that clearly threaten human civilisation, scientists at least have the sense of humour to term what drives this process as "positive feedback". But if translated into an office workplace environment, it's the sort of "positive feedback" from a manager that would run along the lines of: "You're fired, you were rubbish anyway, you have no future, your home has been demolished and I've killed your dog." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions

[Lost-in-FL]

1. The world will still be here without us, the earth does not need our presence...

It won' be the end of the world but the end of humankind.

[kristopher]

2. K&R

[bhbwl]

3. NASA scientist called for global warming deniers to be indicted & tried...

They're just getting in the way of progress.

Utterly useless. The experts have concluded it's so. There comes a point where those insisting on debating the issue should be held criminally liable for putting the global community in jeopardy with their obstructionism.

Someone should make examples of a few of them so the rest would shut up and get out of the way of real, progressive, and GLOBAL change.

[Mnemosyne]

4. 2011 n/t

[hogwyld]

13. Just in time for all of the 2012

doomsday prophecies to come true!

[AdHocSolver]

5. It may be that the only action that will save the environment is a world-wide depression.

Corporations are led by greedy idiots, governments are staffed by corrupt cowards, and most of the public live in a fantasy world.

Scientists have described the problems looming ahead, engineers have come up with possible solutions to slow down or prevent the bad times coming, but our corporate and government "leaders" are determined to wait for the horses to escape before they consider closing the barn door.

Our rulers are bound and determined to cling to absolute power even if it means driving civilization back to the stone age. Enjoy your plasma TV's and your gas-guzzling SUV's folks. The world is poised to take a giant step backward, and your fossil-fuel powered toys are about to become nothing but a mere memory.

[XemaSab]

6. You think a depression will save the earth?

I think a depression will send hungry people out into the woods to catch animals and cut firewood.

Hungry people are not conservationists.

[AdHocSolver]

7. People will not be able to afford gas, plasma TVs, or any other energy intensive goods or activities

They will have to conserve.

China will lose markets and reduce manufacturing, which will reduce pollution. A large number of people may suffer. However, the production of pollution will be less.

People will eat less, especially less meat will be produced since it costs so much. Eating less meat will reduce pollution, and be healthier.

[XemaSab]

8. So people will eat less

Right, that's a great solution to the world's problems. :eyes:

Where do you live? 'Cause where I live the first thing people are going to do if they're hungry is hunt all the deer and waterfowl, and catch all the fish. If people are cold, or need fuel to cook, they're going to go down to the river or up in the hills and it's going to be open season on all the trees.

Our environmental laws in the United States are delicately balanced. People obey the laws because there's no great incentive not to. In countries where people are hungry, they chop down the rain forest for agriculture, and set mist nets up to trap little birds to eat, or worse, shoot gorillas for bushmeat.

To paraphrase: an empty stomach has no conscience.

[XemaSab]

9. And just so you're clear:

You think this kid needs to eat less?

[truebrit71]

10. No, it's parents need to get better at birth control...

...sorry to appear callous, but why in the world would you bring ANOTHER mouth into the world when you don't have enough to eat yourself...

[hogwyld]

14. Well, fortunately

Most of civilization has gone "soft" over the past 100 years. I doubt they could hunt, no matter how hungry one is. Also, the majority of the worlds population doesn't have access to firearms. This will eventually lead to a thinning of the human herd so to speak.

[Dead_Parrot]

15. I'm still not sure about that

In the light of the "what's that bird?" threads, and given that most of the world's population live in cities, I think the impact of billions of starving people might be less than you think. There are lots of ways to die in the woods if you have no idea what you're doing, and those who do survive will probably find a Maple tree then spend 3 days looking for a pancake tree or wafflebush. And if you take all the oil out of this picture...



...all you've got is some bloke with a metal club (who, for a guess, can not run faster than a bear).

It won't save us, of course, but I don't believe an oil-induced depression will be quite as bad for the biosphere as you think.

[cedric]

16. Looking at the scenario of this thread

Ted Nugent and his ilk will be the survirvors

[XemaSab]

17. I gotta say

People who own guns and have used them to kill animals are a ways ahead in this game. :(

[GliderGuider]

11. These lines give me the willies:

We followed the judgments of the mainstream climate science community, represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on what it will take to retain a good chance of not crossing the critical threshold of the Earth's average surface temperature rising by 2C above pre-industrial levels. We were cautious in several ways, optimistic even, and perhaps too much so.

That signals to me that the uncertainty is skewed on the near side of this estimate, not normally distributed around it. Perhaps we should start preparing for things to happen Faster Than Expected?

[XemaSab]

12. .