CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Stanley]

I don't see how the adjustments to life style recommended by the IPCC can be made. Just for a kick off, think about the millions of commuters and people who appear to have lost the use of their legs..... That's leaving aside the vain hope that politicians will do anything.
Just think of what could be done with the billions earmarked for Hinkley Point and HS2......

[Stanley]

See THIS for a Guardian report on the hurricane that has struck Florida. It is reckoned to be the worst for decades. Anything to do with climate change and more extreme weather events?

[Tizer]

All hurricanes and storms are going to be more dangerous the higher the atmospheric temperature becomes. Climate change doesn't necessarily cause the storms but it supercharges them. This one hitting the US now is headed straight up the East coast and on the present trajectory will pass New York just offshore. A couple of days ago I heard a highly respected scientist saying that the Earth is pushing back against what we are doing to it. When Prof Lovelock published his Gaia Hypothesis many decades ago lots of scientists said it was nonsense to treat the Earth like a living organism. Some of us knew he had the right idea but that it was couched in language a little too unconventional for most scientists of the day. Lovelock knew it was all to do with feedback mechanisms and homeostasis - just like living organisms maintaining a stable condition.

[Stanley]

Very well explained Tiz. (I had to look up homeostasis!)
When you think of the massive changes we have triggered, have we a hope in hell of halting them, let alone reversing the process?

[Tizer]

I got marked down in my BSc final exams where I had to write an essay on homeostasis because, like Lovelock, I took the broader view. The examiners had wanted me to explain how it worked in animals and I did that but also extended it beyond, to Earth systems, the atmosphere, the oceans and the solar system. Doing that meant I didn't go into enough detail for them on the conventional animal bit. That experience goes a good way to explaining why we were slow off the mark on climate change.
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This article by BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin is good. The Government should listen to him...
Six climate questions for 'Green GB'
LINK

[Stanley]

Idle examiners always get antsy when you go further than they expected you to Tiz, you know that. When they say "Answer the question'" many of them mean "regurgitate what it was we taught you".
Roger is quite right of course on all his points and flags up the scale of the mess we have got ourselves into. The bottom line is that the planet can't support the course we have pursued for the last 200 years. I don't know how you reverse that.....

[Stanley]

See THIS report of an interview Trump gave to TV last night. I have an idea that his change of heart is more to do with the fact that he's visiting areas of Georgia and Florida devastated by the hurricane than any sudden 'Road to Damascus' moment. The language he uses demonstrates clearly that he has not devoted any time to actually looking at the evidence and still regards scientists as unreliable at best and liars at worst.
What chance of any meaningful change with attitudes like this? I am reminded of Woodward's conclusion in his book 'Fear'. Trump just says whatever will bolster his ratings, even if it is a lie. What an example......

[Tizer]

I don't think it's a `change of heart' - it's just whatever suits him to say at that moment. Tomorrow he could be saying the scientists are all wrong and spreading `fake news'.

Welcome to `Green GB Week'...
`Green GB Week: Landmark week of action to celebrate Clean Growth' LINK

[plaques]

Clean GB week. A total misuse of statistics. quote...The UK has led the world to date in cutting emissions while creating wealth. Between 1990 and 2016, the UK reduced its emissions by over 40% while growing the economy by more than two-thirds – the best performance in the G7 on a per person basis. We have shut down the heavy industries and a large chunk of manufacturing and moved over to poorly paid gig services. It also does not mentioning the money Joe Public has poured into the Banks so that they could go from bankruptcy to disgustingly inflated profits handed out to the top 5% of earners. This so called success has been paid for by those at the bottom handing even more money to those at the top.

[Stanley]

Agreed Tiz.....
Good point about the closing of heavy industry P. We comment on Trump saying whatever suits him, our politicians do just the same thing and at the same time, as you point out, drive the least well off into poverty to transfer more money uphill.
Do you ever get the feeling we are being conned Big Time?

[Tizer]

`Rising seas will swamp homes, report says' LINK
`England’s coastal communities haven’t faced up to the reality of rising seas through climate change, a report says. An increase of at least 1m is almost certain at some point in the future, the government’s advisors predict. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) warns this huge rise may happen over the next 80 years - within the lifetimes of today's children. A government spokesman said the public would be protected from the impacts of climate change. But the CCC says current shoreline management plans are unfunded and hopelessly optimistic. It estimates that by the 2080s, up to 1.2 million homes may be at increased risk from coastal floods....'

[Stanley]

I followed that as well Tiz. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done to alleviate the fact that large towns will get any possible protection (pre-eminently London of course!) and the rest will be abandoned to their fate. It's all a consequence of the way we have mismanaged our world and these stories will increase in frequency from now on.

[Tizer]

This research, published in Nature, will be very important if other scientists confirm the results...
`Climate change: Oceans 'soaking up more heat than estimated' LINK
`The world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years, researchers say. Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought. They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated. This could make it much more difficult to to keep global warming within safe levels this century....'

[Stanley]

I interpret that to mean that quietly away and unrecognised by us Gaia has in fact been protecting us. We haven't been as successful as we think. Am I somewhere near right?
Once again I can't find it on the web but I have just heard a BBC report that someone has been analysing historic extreme weather events and determined that they are getting more frequent and are almost certain that it is due to global climatic change.
Later.... I have found THIS BBC account of the report.

[Tizer]

I interpret that to mean that quietly away and unrecognised by us Gaia has in fact been protecting us. We haven't been as successful as we think. Am I somewhere near right?

Yes, but there will come a point where the oceans can't absorb more heat with out seriously affecting the creatures that live there and disturbing the complex web of deep ocean currents.

[Stanley]

So good to see you managed to log on Tiz!
Yes, I understand that, there is a limit to her beneficence and besides, the benefit was accidental, she actually doesn't care for us any more than any other species which suffers extinction! It makes me wonder whether man-made global warming is actually happening faster than we think......

[Stanley]

See THIS report on air quality in San Francisco and recognise that since this was published it has got worse. I experienced the air inversion phenomenon when I was there in the 1980s. It resulted in heavy fog in the Bay Area then but now it is trapping the smoke from the huge Camp Fire. I think we can reasonably attribute this in part to climate change and it illustrates another consequence that until now has not been clear.
Normal air quality is bad enough in our modern cities, it appears that it could be made worse as the climate changes despite what Trump says......

[Stanley]

THIS BBC account of this, "In their annual greenhouse gas bulletin, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says there is no sign of reversal in this rising trend. Carbon dioxide levels reached 405 parts per million (ppm) in 2017, a level not seen in 3-5 million years. Since 1990 the warming impact of these long lived gases on the climate has increased by 41%. This increases the time pressure on us and it may already be too late to reverse it. Should someone inform the deniers?

[Tizer]

It's not helped by this...
`China-backed coal projects prompt climate change fears' LINK

[Stanley]

And not helped by Trump confusing cold weather with evidence on climate change. See THIS report. This after his own scientists tell him directly that he is wrong. Words fail me yet again about this man and the system that put him in the White House.
Is there any hope at all that we will see a reversal of the trends that are leading to the increasing atmospheric degradation? Don't hold your breath......

[Tizer]

More here on the Fourth National Climate Assessment: LINK

[Stanley]

Reading that and taking into account the latest improved estimates on CO2 due to better technology one wonders how anyone can believe that knee-jerk pronouncements built on 'gut feelings' ("Climate change is a Chinese plot!") can compete with measured assessments like this. I want to believe that reason will prevail but two things militate against that. First we have run out of time. Second, as I often say, "Never underestimate the capacity of humans to be stupid!" If this is compounded by Presidential authority we are in deep do do.
Collectively we aren't fit to run a booze up in a brewery, let alone a planet.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the latest pearls of wisdom from Donald Trump on Global Warming. I can't begin to articulate my feelings about this man and his opinions without straying into angry comment. The man must be as thick as two short planks.......

[Tizer]

...and he'll probably say our Met Office is pushing fake news in this latest report:
`Climate change: UK summers could be over 5C warmer by 2070' LINK

[Stanley]

I saw that as well Tiz. What struck me was that the TV reporter was stood with the Thames Barrier in the background and he said something to the effect that London would be all right because it was protected by the barrier. I seem to remember forecasts that immediate modifications are needed to the barrier as it was not designed to cope with the sea level rise now confidently predicted......
We have seen over-complacency in the past, could we be looking at it now in this touching faith in the barrier?