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Merrick
Merrick
2148 posts

Re: climate change pt 2
Nov 04, 2005, 19:11
On the climate change front, the effects on desertification or flooding on topsoil will be catastrophic for farming.

In the longer term, it is not unlikely that earth will become uninhabitable for humans within a millennium. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - not exactly wild-eyed scaremongers - says we need CO2 emission cuts of at least 60%, more like 90% if we are to offset the worst of it. We are not only failing to meet Kyoto's target of a 5.2% cut, we are actually increasing.

The UN Panel said we can expect a global temperature increase of 1.5-6 degrees by 2100. More recent estimates from atmospheric scientists say the upper estimate should be between 7 and 10 degrees.

The unsure element is that first couple of degrees will set off other reactions. Melt the ice caps and the seabed sediment starts to degrade. Cut the rainfall and/or increase temperature in temperate places and peat bogs dry out, their undegraded substance breaks down and gives off huge quantities of CO2. Temperate trees need cold winters to bud; no more beech, blackcurrant, oak or what have you. So, the effects themselves will create more CO2 and less trees.

250 million years ago there were volcanic eruptions that put vast quantities of CO2 and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. It caused a global temperature increase of 6 degrees in a very short space of time. Life on earth itself nearly died, and certainly had we been around we'd have been extinct.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2003/07/01/shadow-of-extinction/

"I will endeavour to unearth it this week-end" - would be glad to see it.

I would love to be wrong on this stuff. For ages I held out against believing much of it because I knew how depressing it would be to face it. As Jim Bliss puts in his peak oil feature in U-Know, it's horrible coming to terms with it, and much of denial is a perfectly understandable reluctance to accept what this stuff really means if it's true.

But like I said ealrier, it's arguing against almost all climatologists to deny climate change, and indeed already the increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather is here.

The ten hottest years on record are since 1990. Sixteen of the top 17 are since 1980.

"I am also of the opinion that by focussing everything on fuels we are missing the opportunity to press forward other reforms that would benefit the situation, not least a vast reduction in the use of plastics and the reversal of de-forestation with a massive planting programme wherever land is available."

Broadly speaking, I agree. But the thing is, our use of fossil fuels is profligate. There is simply no need for one person to burn the oil it takes to carry a ton of metal with them everywhere they go. There is no need to have apples flown in from New Zealand or potatoes from Egypt.

Those fossil sources are key to the bumper crops we've come to depend on. As the crunch hits, it's obscene to squander them on cars or disposable plastics.

The reforestation is also a big deal, although we should be clear on what forests we plant, and the term 'land available' should respect the huge ecological value of other wild areas such as grasslands and peat bogs.

Land use is my main reason for not eating animal products. An animal-rich diet takes a hell of a lot more land than a plant-based one. Meat production is the prime reason for the Amazon's continued deforestation.

There are a lot of ways we can minimise our resource consumption, and I think we should proiritise non-renewables, and it seems clear top of that list must surely come the fossil fuels, both for reasons of conserving them as precious and also that using them exacerbates climate change.
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