Global dimming and warming.

[The Grand Nudger]

If that one and all of it's siblings were all going at once (and constantly)...we'd begin to approach the level of activity during P-Tr.

An interesting aside Kichi, re things like major currents and how they affect the environment (and the continued existence of any given species). The formation of Pangea would have cut off, disrupted, and altogether annihilated any currents like the conveyors we see today which were intersected by landmasses. For this reason it has been theorized that the formation of the super-continent itself (no other factors required- though it isn't likely that the super-continent could have formed without any other effects, and obviously it didn't -but just as an exercise in classification) would have kicked off and maintained large scale marine extinction events that lasted for millions of years, ultimately adding to the death toll in the final culmination of that process as it appears to us, P-Tr.

[popeyespappy]

[The Grand Nudger]

[popeyespappy]

Just a few points from this end then I quit. You keep talking about the Permian extinction like we can’t get there from here. Yes, I disagree with that assessment because I think we can get there from here. Please note that I didn’t say we would get there just that we could. I believe a similar outcome is avoidable. However if we continue down the same path we are currently on unabated the odds of a similar outcome are greatly increased. While conditions today are not identical to those at the height of the P-Tr event they are similar to in many ways than they were early on in the P-Tr event. CO2 levels in the atmosphere and in the oceans are going up. Surface temperatures are on the rise. These things combined with other human activities are causing habitats to be lost faster than the creatures that live in them can adapt to their changed environment. We are already in the 6th great extinction.

The thing I think you keep missing because you have yet to address it is if things that led up to the P-Tr event were so much worse than they are now, why is the data telling us things are happening faster now than they did then? We won’t need flood basalt eruptions if our current activities set off a chain of events that raise the surface temperature 8 C and releases the methane hydrate currently sequestered at the bottom of the oceans. Hell, right now a good volcanic eruption every couple of years would provide a mitigating effect to AGW.

On aquifer depletion, increased aridity and mass migrations. Never once did I even suggest that low water high yield farming technics are not economically feasible. What I said was many of our aquifers are being depleted at unsustainable rates, and much of what is currently our most productive farmlands are going to experience increased aridity as global warming continues. Where these two conditions come together there will simply not be enough water resources available locally to sustain production at levels even approaching anything like what we see today. You just can’t grow 10 bushels of corn without 200 liters of water no matter what growing technics you use because there is 200 liters of water in 10 bushels of corn. What I said was it will not be economically feasible to desalinate and transport enough water from the oceans to the areas most affected by draught and aquifer depletion to enable large scale food production in those areas.

There is nothing new about the idea of water wars or mass migrations due to water shortages. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 47% of the world’s population will face high water stress by 2030. In other words in less than 20 years 4 billion people are going to find it difficult to obtain enough fresh water to keep them alive. The IPCC says, "Water and its availability and quality will be the main pressures on and issues for, societies and the environment under climate change." The US Senate is issuing reports with names like Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia’s growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon is on record saying the reason for going to war in 1967 was for water. The Georgia State Legislature has proposed invading the state of Tennessee over access to the Tennessee River. It’s an issue (not invasion but access) that came up again just a couple of years ago when the Atlanta area was under a sever draught.

US corn production is expected to be down 15% this year despite a record planting in 2012. This due to a draught measured in weeks. Future climate change is expected to bring draughts measured in years. But that’s all good. There is no need to try to avoid this type of problem. We have pumps and plastic sheeting. We can deal with it when it comes.

[jonb]

Alight I'm going to throw, my two penny worth in, Yes the weather is changing, but the processes are not fully understood. The outcome could well be catastrophic. To say there were similar situations more than five million years ago, is to forget, five million years ago the Antarctic was covered in trees the summer temperature was 25c and the winter 10c. But then think how could that be? Plus 10 in winter when there was no sun what was providing all that heat? Answer ocean circulation warm water from the equator moving down around the Antarctic and back up a huge radiator keeping the whole place equally warm. Now though the Antarctic and south America have moved apart, so the southern ocean just circulates around the Antarctic insulating it and that continent is now cold. This means there is no longer the radiator to remove heat from the centre that there was.
Given this information what are people going to do? Nothing, give up the car, tv, computer, lifestyle, no its all somebody else's fault. People believe what they want to believe not what is true.

[The Grand Nudger]

[Gooders1002]

I am shit scared, I don't see this world lasting past the century. Especially if the religitard keep denying it. I think we need to consentry on global warming. I am glade I am not bring any children into this world, as if something is not done they I am bring the kid into the world to die.

[KichigaiNeko]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

---

And for some ungodly reason our PM seems to think that SHE has ALL the answers!! :pfft:

But seriously now .......

I have heard all the doom and gloom for nigh on 50 years...just WHAT-The-Fuck is being done, why?, how much? and what wlse needs to be done to adapt to this "monster" called climate change?

'Cos sure as hell we are NOT going to escape it.

a bit like earthquakes and religion I think......

Me: So YOU think that the Earth was made by god and that is it ad infinitum?

Religious nut job: Oh yes God FIXED the Earth and the stars so they will Never change

Me: yeah right...explain earthquakes, Climate Chang, Magnetic pole shift and everything else that science has uncovered that would lead one to confirm that we live on a volatile rock...third one out from the star Sol in the unfashionable arm of the Milky way Galaxy.

We are NOT great...but we might be getting there
/rant

[Gooders1002]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

I live by the saying hope for the best, plan for the worst. So why should I relax? in short summary as I can't be arsed to read walls of text.

[KichigaiNeko]

Why be shit scared gooders? So the propaganda has gotten to you?

RELAX...Chill pills are in isles 12 (at your local supermarket)

I live by the saying hope for the best, plan for the worst. So why should I relax? in short summary as I can't be arsed to read walls of text.

Meh...me too!

But still RELAX!! I am thinking that the questions now to ask are...."OK so WHAT THE FUCK CAN we do?? How CAN we keep feeding our people and keep economies prosperous??

And DON'T ask Julliar Gillard...she has no clue as to WHO actually owns our power supply let alone anything else; poor girl.