Climate change

Baguio is indeed a beautiful city, and a great spot to take off to Sagada and to the world famous Banaue rice terraces. The Julian Wolfsson sponsored Country Club is really quite delightful, and I wonder if the earthquake damaged Hyatt has been rebuilt? Yes, I agree with you, every individual's effort collectively taken makes a difference. We probably will have some 200 people reading this post. But that is 200 KwH less, even if each person reduced 1kw of energy consumption per month.

Yesterday in Paris 2000 of the worlds leading experts on climate change categorically stated "the climate is being unnaturally altered by the behaviour of Humans". There is no debate anymore, global warminbg is being caused by humans. And while you may say that the US is reducing its levels and others are increasing you have to take it in context. If the US has reduced emissions it is by no more than 1% while the countries that you talk about increasing are going from almost no GHG emissions to very low GHG emissions. The USA is still the main problem, they have 5% of the worlds population but contribute 25% of GHG emissions and the progress they are making is nothing compared to most of europe.

While undertaking me degree last year i read several journal articles from the 1960s which suggested the possibility that the release of pollutants into the atmosphere could potentially alter the earths climate in the future. By the 1980s quite a few scientists were finding significant evidence to back this up. In the 1991 IPCC report they in fact suggested the idea that human activity was beginning to alter the planet but that further research was needed. By 2000 there was huge amounts of scientific evidence to back this up (If you wish i can provide a long but by no means diffinitive list of resources to back up this statement). Finally today in 2007 there is substantial agreement amongst experts (in fact you will struggle to find anyone who doesn't recognise it as at least a major cause of anthropogenic climate change. If you have any more arguments i will happily tear them apart as well. I was scepticle myself about 3 years ago but i have come to my conclusions by looking at arguments on both sides It is you who is mis-informed

What you are saying is totally incorrect. The United Nations started this debate 10 years ago and noboby in the scientific community agreed. For political reasons they kept pushing it. For political reasons it is spiraling out of control. There is a lot more money involved than truth. Global warming is true man causing it is not.

I dunno about Kyoto not working, all of the countries in europe have reduced their GHG emissions in the last 5 years. Would it have happened without Kyoto? I cant answer that and nor can you but i think it shows that something is working, whether its public pressure or the Kyoto agreement. Either way its a good thing. As for the report, i look forward to reading it, my former lecturer was involved in producing it so i'm interested in what he said

We need to give some teeth to international law and really try to enforce what is good for the entire earth. It is time to quit the pettyness and try to fix the problems that are affecting us all.

I quote from Severn Suzuki's (then 12 years old) speech at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. I know, I am only a child - she began! "I am here to speak for all generations to come; I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard; I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone; I am afraid to breathe the air because I don't know what chemicals are in it; I used to go fishing in Vancouver, my hometown, with my dad, until just a few years ago.... Losing a future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. For the full text of the speech, which received a standing ovation at Rio - see this link. http://www.slothclub.org/pages.activity/japan/sevtour/sevspeech1992.htm Fifteen years after Rio, and after years of denying the Kyoto codicils, a belated acknowledgement... pshaw I say. History will judge the Bush administration more harshly for its irresponsible and ostrichlike policy towards the environment.

That was a bit of a rant, on a reread. Yes, I believe that we will be able to arrest but not reverse the damage done. It may take twenty more years, but as human beings we are just stupid, not utterly stupid. I do have faith that we will, as a human race work together to solve this problem, which goes way beyond national boundaries.

A good question and thanks for bringing that to my attention, i have now given the best response again. Although not sure i can be bothered giving best responses if they are gonna keep disapperaing like this

how long can we all sit here looking at information, until its too late and we can say conclusively that its happened? At some point you just have to accept the scientific facts. I have read countless journal articles arguing both sides of this argument, but over the years the arguments against have gotten thinner and less frequent. I think the IPCC report the other day finally said that it is happening and it is time we did something. The Problem with China and India is that they are developing and it would not be possible to develop and cut emissions, i do agree that everything should be done to reduce stop their rises which is exactly why they should be included in the next round in 2011, but in my view the USA has a moral responsibility to the world, they are not developing, they are the richest and most powerful country in the world as well as the leading polluters, it is their job to try and make a difference

please go read the response i left to comedyaddict higher on this page, it should explain all you need to know about global warming and just how important it is

Mr. Smuggeridge: For 21 years of age and with a DEGREE (Wow) you are suffering from a severe lack of humility--you are much too young and inexperienced to act as the spokesperson for , let alone, be an expert on global warming. You are aware that symposia and similar events have been for many centuries by invitation: Therefore, the panal of experts and other invited attendees can be tailored to fit any given agenda. Citing that most, all etc. of the attendees at the (name your event)are in agreement on some topic is not particulary meaningful. The general public that might be in attendence, whether lay or scientific, are pretty much fluff.

You make a good point, but your lucky that i'm an expert on this matter. Your perfectly right to say that the temperature of the earth is constantly changing, we have been in a period of warming for the last 400 years since we had what was known as the mini ice age in the 1600s. However you mentioned the critical point yourself, those rises are usually in the region of 0-0.5°C every 100 years. The IPCC report suggested temperature rise of 3°C in the next 100 years. So i agree that not all of the 3°C rise will be down to us but about 2.5°c of it will. Technically we should call it anthropogenic climate change (meaning human induced climate change) Secondly the hole in the O-Zone layer does not cause global warming. That hole was caused by the release of a man made chemical called CFCs (you used to get them in things such as fridges, pressurised cans etc). These are now banned and the hole in the O-zone has substantially healed itself and now less of a worry, experts expect it to be completely healed within 20 years. Global warming is caused by CO2 (which as you said is a heavier gas) rising into the atmosphere creating a barrier, it lets the normal amount heat energy onto the earth but then traps it by stopping some of the reflected energy from returning to space, it is this mechanism which is the only reason the earth is inhabitable, but as we release more and more GHG this layer gets thicker making it progressively warmer. I hope i have cleared things up for you, if you have any more questions just ask and i hope i have made just a few people realise that this is a real problem

Oopss... I must be tired. The line that reads, effect on the warmer, should really read effect on the weather... time for bed..

Thanks for your comments. It makes sense what you say there. However, you did make one point which is surprising. "The IPCC report suggested temperature rise of 3°C in the next 100 years." I wonder what sort of science they used to suggest a temperature rise of 3 degrees. Is seems to me, if you factor in the margin of error, the suggested 3 degree rise may not actually be any more that what has been happening since the mini ice age in the 1600's. I guess I am just a little wary of science the predicts / suggests how earth is going to change... Regardless, we are raping this planet, and that to me is enough of a reason to change how we live... Thanks for the great discussion, and for making us think (ok, most of us anyways ;)

Interesting.. the IPCC report has just come out... I think it is something we all need to consider, as well as talk about. Personally I am not 100% happy behind the science of the report. Regardless though, as humans, we are abusing the planet. And it really does affect us all. I know if I lived in India, I probably wouldn't want it to get any warmer... :)

now theres an idea, if you can't be bothered to alter your life slightly lets try and build some ridiculous contraption to solve the problem. Do you have any idea how large Antarctica is? To cover it would be one hell of a structure, i think the money would be better spent trying to find alternatives fuels and cutting down emissions

That's a little snippy. I'm not sure a structure would even be necessary, perhaps something similar to parachutes might be more in order. Closed minds only try to attach one avenue, you should open your mind to more than one alternative to fixing the problem.

i didn't mention the weather, i find more worrying the fact that much of southern europe could be come uninhabitable within the next 100 years, there will be more droughts and more dying people in Africa. True combined with this there will also be more storms. So whats wrong with trying to do something about it?