Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum And more bad news on global warming

Greenland's ice is melting rapidly. In some places, glacial levels have been falling by 10 metres a year and ultimately contributing to rising sea levels.

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4145034.stm

Interesting to read the part about old farming regions being used once more. Do you think it makes the case for anthropogenic causes of global warming trickier to argue? At most it seems we can only argue that humans are exacerbating a natural phenomenon.

It is really irrelevant whether it is natural or not if some contributing part is our irresponsibility to manage the only place in the universe we inhabit.

It will be a very small consolation to those in many countries that die in floods and of starvation that we refused to try until after their lives had become intolerable and irrepairably harmed that some part of the issue was a natural phenomena.

Certainly people need to take personal responsibility for what they do and how they live. But using that as an excuse to shirk responsibility for the rest of the planet is the purest form of hypocrisy.

Well, yes of course. And cleaning up the air would be no bad thing anyway, no matter how little we contribute to global warming.

It would be interesting to know how much we do contribute to global warming, though.

It isn't very difficult to make a rough estimate. If there were no CO2 in the atmosphere at all, it would very cold on Earth. The 0.037% CO2 concentration in the atmosphere keeps us warm. The increase in CO2 due to human activity can be easily estimated (about half of what we put in the atmosphere stays there for many hundreds of years). If I remember correctly, the CO2 concentration was 0.025% 100 years ago and most of the increase is due to human activity.

The real problem is how long a lead time there is for any change. We could already done irreparable damage and we wouldn't know.

Daniel

DNA sequencing software

I yet to meet anyone seriously engaged in climate research that doesn't believe we have irreparably messed in our own house. That we have done damage beyond our immediate ability to repair it. And that if we don't start being more responsibile we will only make a bad situation worse.

Just where in any holy book or legal book is permission given for one person to foul another person's air or water?

Taking personal responsibility includes cleaning up your own messes. Even when those messes are potentially flushed down a sewer when no one is watching. Corporations world-wide are being wholly irresponsible in the name of current profitability. The future habitability of this planet and the quality of life of its inhabitants be damned.

Everybody ride your bike instead of your car!

Whenever possible. Or consider moving closer to work.

I am in Tokyo this week on business and am amazed to find it not unusual for people to commute 2-3 hours each way to work. Certainly most are using public transportation ... but 2-3 hours. These people are insane. Well actually tired. Well to be completely honest exhausted to the point of burn-out.

If the Japanese government wants to really fix their economy ... they should just send everyone home for a week with orders to sleep it off.

But back to the topic at hand ... even with public transportation they are wasting incredible amounts of energy, travelling ridiculous distances, and thus have put bicycles out of the realm of possibility. A shame.