Global Warming: A Global Warning for a Planetary Horror Scen

by **triers** on Thu Jan 15, 2009 2:52 am

Global Warming: A Global Warning for a Planetary Horror Scenario

The world is changed.
I feel it in the water.
I feel it in the earth.
I smell it in the air.
Much that once was...
...is lost.

For none now live who remember it...

Sounds beautiful and a little sad, but this is unfortunately not only the beginning of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" fantasy novel.. This is a prelude to the topic about Global Warming..

So what's the fuss about it :?:

Hm. It's very simple really: there is convincing evidence that the planet is warming up and as a result the climate is changing unprecedentedly in our civilization's known history..

What we know:

# Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005.

# The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that most of the temperature increase since the mid-twentieth century is "very likely" due to the increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

# Natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.

# These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science.

# Climate model projections indicate that global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century.( :!:

)

Briefly: Increasing global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, likely including an expanse of the subtropical desert regions. Other likely effects include increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, changes in agricultural yields, modifications of trade routes, glacier retreat, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

To get a better picture of what might be on it's way I recommend you watching:

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
A documentary on Al Gore's campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide.

Glacier Meltdown
Imagine a world where melting ice caps have raised sea levels by 20 feet and the great coastal cities of the world are under water. It is a nightmare scenario, but does it have a scientific basis? Discover the real science behind climate change.

Six Degrees Could Change the World
In the 2004 eco-thriller The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich dramatized the potential consequences of accelerated global warming. By combining stock footage with computer-generated imagery, the National Geographic special Six Degrees Could Change the World serves as a sort of nonfiction counterpoint. As NASA climate scientist James Hansen cautions, even two degrees Celsius represents a tipping point (from which there is no return).

Watch all of them, especially "Six Degrees..", they can be found on torrent sites like http://www.mininova.org/.

I personally (and realistically) think that Humanity in last decades is crossing one very dangerous border line - the line that marks the beginning of turbulent changes.. And to be honest this is not only about Climate Change - this is about everything happening on the planet - starting from Global Temperatures and going on with Ecosystems Balance, Society Impact, World Economical Issues, etc..

And if we look with open eyes we have to admit that purely from a moral, philosophical and evolutionary perspective this emerging "Horror Scenario" is not what our ancestors have died for, what new generations would ask us for and what WE as humans have ever wanted to achieve.

And yet we are all facing serious consequences if we don't comprehend quickly, as one whole species, that future of life on the planet is dependent on our very next political, economical and everyday life actions.

Yes, it's been said and yet it has to be repeated until we make and know that our actions cause reactions - and with our modern and comfortable and yet absolutely unintelligent and energy inefficient way of living, what we do is bringing the planetary life-support system to a giant collapse :!:

So, do we want to be a victim of our own comfort and ignorance :?:

NO, I think there is hope and chance to avoid this Horror Scenario :!:

by **admin** on Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:38 pm

What we know is that there is a rapid rise in Global Temperature, so rapid that it can be compared to the result of thousands of years normal change. This is unnatural to what we can expect and observe from scientific probes of ice, rock, etc..

I am not saying this kind of change has never happened during the past known history. And yet officially it's supposed that one major results of all that is the chain reaction, result from CO2 emissions.

To be honest I have to say that I am not sure if Human Activity is the real and only cause of Global Warming - but many of the evidences let us conclude that. Take for example several facts like mass deforestation, air, river and oceanic poisoning on global scale, expanding deserts, accelerating polar caps ice and mountain glaciers melting - a threat for many cities and countries on the sea-level coast - all these directly or closely resulting from human activity - especially that of developed economies.

And this matches very 'strangely' in time with the start of wide usage of fossil fuels, hyper-production, overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion, consumer's society super-comfortable and super-inefficient way of life.

That's why I have to say that maybe the fault for all this is human, not natural.

But here comes the question - what do we have to do to now :?:

Because we are (most probably) 1-2 steps away from developing technological solution to World Energy problems which would help us solve many other problems of today :idea:

You see - there is a paradox:

Our civilization has done so harm to the Earth in order to become technologically developed that finding a solution to save itself and the planet might turn out to be the necessary result of all that development - otherwise who knows what happens.

I think now is the time of decisive actions.

by **triers** on Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:00 am

Thank you for the link, my friend!

Here is another one from BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/

And to share with you I've just watched one very interesting documentary from BBC, callled:

"Climate Conspiracy Or Global Catastrophe?" by BBC Four.

by **triers** on Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:27 am

Just adding this title after a look at mininova:

Global warming, and how to combat it, has provoked intense debate, changed the way we see the planet and created headlines around the world. But when and how did scientists first discover global warming, why has it led to such furious debate and who should we believe?

In BBC Two's three-part series, Earth - The Climate Wars, geologist Dr Iain Stewart (Earth - The Power Of The Planet) presents a definitive guide to the history of climate change

1) Battle Begins
In the 1970s the world seemed to be falling apart. From acid rain to overpopulation, ecological concerns were at the fore. And it was at this time that climate change first became a hot political issue. But it wasn't global warming that frightened scientists, it was the complete opposite; a new ice age.

Dr Iain Stewart traces the history of climate change from its very beginning and examines just how the scientific community managed to get it so very wrong back in the Seventies. Along the way he uncovers some of the great unsung heroes of climate change science, and introduces us to a secret organisation of American government scientists, known as Jason, who wrote the first official report on global warming as far back as 1979.

He shows how - by the late 1980s - global warming had already become a serious political issue. It looked as if the world was uniting to take action. But it turned out to be a false dawn. Because in the 1990s global warming would be transformed into one of the biggest scientific controversies of our age.

2) Fightback
Dr Iain Stewart investigates the counter-attack that was launched by the global warming sceptics in the 1990s.

At the start of the '90s it seemed the world was united. At the Rio Earth summit the world signed up to a programme of action to start tackling climate change. Even George Bush was there. But the consensus didn't last.

Iain examines the scientific arguments that developed as the global warming sceptics took on the climate change consensus. The sceptics attacked almost everything that scientists held to be true. They argued that the planet wasn't warming up, that even if it was it was nothing unusual, and certainly whatever was happening to the climate was nothing to do with human emissions of greenhouse gases.

Iain interviews some of the key global warming sceptics, and discovers how their positions have changed over time.

3) Fight for the Future
Having explained the science behind global warming, and addressed the arguments of the climate change sceptics earlier in the series, Dr Iain Stewart concludes the series by looking at the biggest challenge now facing climate scientists - Just how can they predict exactly what changes global warming will bring?

It's a journey that takes him from early attempts to model the climate system with dishpans, to supercomputers, and to the frontline of climate research today: Greenland. Most worryingly he discovers that scientists are becoming increasingly concerned that their models are actually underestimating the speed of changes already underway.

IMDB

BBC.Earth.The.Climate.Wars.1of3.Battle.Begins.2008

BBC.Earth.The.Climate.Wars.2of3.Fightback.2008

BBC.Earth.The.Climate.Wars.3of3.Fight.for.the.Future.2008

Another one:
The Fateful Balance (1990)

Unfortunately no mininova link..

And this one:

Doomsday Called Off

Mininova: CBC - Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off

Lots of stuff for the next nights :mrgreen:

by **triers** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:47 pm

Global warming 'underestimated'

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

BBC News

by **admin** on Sat Feb 28, 2009 3:33 pm

Antarctic glaciers melting faster than thought

GENEVA – Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers once believed that the melting was limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land pointing toward South America. But satellite data and automated weather stations now indicate it is more widespread.

.............................................

By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet — levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago.

Making matters worse, scientists said, the ice shelves that hold the glaciers back from the sea are also weakening.

And to add one idea mentioned in the comments of the same article, they said there is a book that predicts that due to the difference of melting of ice from the North and South Ice Caps and quick temperature rising this would trigger change in the Earth's cosmic orbit..

(The book in Russian: http://world.freeglobus.com/geography/)

by **admin** on Thu Apr 02, 2009 4:27 pm

One interesting news we should know as internet users that even the most usual and innocent Google or other Search Engine service we use for granted is a big factor for CO2 emissions:

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches

New research lifts lid on links between CO2 emissions and internet searches

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

by **surfer** on Mon May 11, 2009 11:36 pm

Yes, the problem is not how much CO2 your PC produces but the amount of CO2 emitted by servers such as Google have and many other companies as well as governments and militaries have.