Runaway Global Warming - Scarier than you think

Cid_Yama

The possibility of runaway global warming is not as distant a threat as we may wish. It is a threat which worries some of the greatest minds living among us today. Stephen Hawking, physicist, best selling author of A Brief History of Time, and claimant of the Cambridge University post once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton (the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics), has been quoted as saying, "I am afraid the atmosphere might get hotter and hotter until it will be like Venus with boiling sulfuric acid."

The fear is that, once the atmosphere has warmed past some critical level, various feedback mechanisms will kick in and push the temperature beyond the point where the planet will become inhospitable for human life. Once these feedback mechanisms have kicked in, it is unlikely that we can do anything to intervene. And considering the current signs from the environment, accelerating industrial emissions, and the long life of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, some worry that it may already be too late to prevent this scenario.

Runaway Global Warming
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In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

essex

This piece was published 4 years ago. Since then there has been more exacting scientific research and none of it points to imminent disaster. The IPCC has admitted that the climate has not warmed since the 1998 El Nino and posits that there will be no more warming now for up to 10 years. None of their climate models predicted the gradual decline in temperatures since 1998, nor the very sharp drop 07/08. So 20 years of no real warming to get hysterical about.

Dukat_Reloaded · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Posts: 1004

I don't think there is global warming, for the last 10 years, the average temperature has been static.
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eXpat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 08, 2006 Posts: 704

So? is all that CO2 we are pumping in the atmosphere of not consequence then?

Forest are being cut, deserts are spreading, there´s a overall warming pattern in the oceans with its implications in marine Life and plankton which generates oxigen, etc. All the fundamentals show that we are breaking the climate system for good.
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Stocking up on popcorn Smile

eXpat · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jun 08, 2006 Posts: 704

While temperature may not have increased in the last 10 years, look at the pattern of the last 150:

or the last 1000 years:

There´s not going back from this, we cannot say, "hey, I guess I was wrong with this climate change thingy" if we break it, we break it for good.
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Stocking up on popcorn Smile

Homesteader

The only constant is change.

Civilization's last chance Author Bill McKibben

snip:

"A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

"
And suddenly the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. It appears that we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car; and Americans are buying TVs the size of windshields, which suck juice ever faster."

Link: http://tinyurl.com/6p258q

dissident · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 294

The Venus scenario can be called hysterics. Even if we burn all the fossil fuels and all of the biomass we are not going to get a CO2 dominated atmosphere like Venus. I am not saying it will be a healthy environment for life, but unlike on Venus most of the carbon has been locked up in carbonate rocks thanks to the presence of oceans for most of Earth's history.

Cid_Yama

If Stephen Hawking is concerned, then I think I will be too. Besides, it doesn't have to be as bad as Venus for all life on Earth to end. If we start having 130 degree F summers around here, I think that will do it for me.

Oh... and essex, you're an idiot.
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In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

EnergyUnlimited · Fission Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 2762

Homesteader

Kylon · Expert Joined: Aug 12, 2005 Posts: 792

Homesteader

essex

cid_yama your descent to personal abuse just shows hysteria is more important to you than facts.

Lore

Cid_Yama

cid_yama your descent to personal abuse just shows hysteria is more important to you than facts.

Actually, it just shows I'm beyond the point of tolerating the likes of you. Since what is going on really IS going on, people like you need to be taken to the wall and shot. Your time will come, trust me. What you are seeing is righteous rage.
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In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell