IPCC Final call to halt 'climate catastrophe'

[Still Waters]

It's the final call, say scientists, the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures.

Their dramatic report on keeping that rise under 1.5 degrees C says the world is now completely off track, heading instead towards 3C.

Keeping to the preferred target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will mean "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".

It will be hugely expensive - but the window of opportunity remains open.

After three years of research and a week of haggling between scientists and government officials at a meeting in South Korea, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a special report on the impact of global warming of 1.5C.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45775309

Related:

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/321971-life-changing-climate-report-under-debate/

[Imaginarynumber1]

It's too late.

Too many people think they can pick a choose facts, ignore science, and are more concerned with profits than long term survival. 

I'm sure humanity will persist for quite some time, but the world will be changed massively. 

[kartikg]

And we dream about settling on Mars. 

[Imaginarynumber1]

43 minutes ago, kartikg said:

And we dream about settling on Mars. 

No reason we can't. 

[Doug1029]

1 hour ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

No reason we can't. 

If we can't sustain ourselves on earth, what makes you think we can do it on Mars?

Doug

[Imaginarynumber1]

3 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

If we can't sustain ourselves on earth, what makes you think we can do it on Mars?

Doug

We haven't killed ourselves off yet, so you are still technically sustaining ourselves.
I maybe cynical and pessimistic and pretty much hate people in general but I am optimistic about our future off this planet.. 

[Doug1029]

57 minutes ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

We haven't killed ourselves off yet, so you are still technically sustaining ourselves.
I maybe cynical and pessimistic and pretty much hate people in general but I am optimistic about our future off this planet.. 

Me, too.  But we may have to work at it.

But unless we keep our planet in decent shape and our population under control, we will eventually reach a point where we don't have the extra wherewithal to go to space.  We'll spend our last nickels trying to stay alive.

Doug

 

[Imaginarynumber1]

3 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Me, too.  But we may have to work at it.

But unless we keep our planet in decent shape and our population under control, we will eventually reach a point where we don't have the extra wherewithal to go to space.  We'll spend our last nickels trying to stay alive.

Doug

 

Which is why we should get out now while we still can. 

[SHaYap]

I for one is staying put, I ain't going no where and staying right here is where I'm gonna be, this is the only Planet I got and I intend on keeping it. You boys just go right on ahead and go where ever it is you intend on going

This is where I was born and this is where I intend to die

~

[Doug1029]

15 hours ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

Which is why we should get out now while we still can. 

It will be another decade before we can set foot on Mars.  And another century before we can terraform it.  Be easier to terraform earth - and less costly.  I hope we don't have to terraform earth, but it's starting to look like we may not have a choice.

Doug

[Imaginarynumber1]

2 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

It will be another decade before we can set foot on Mars.  And another century before we can terraform it.  Be easier to terraform earth - and less costly.  I hope we don't have to terraform earth, but it's starting to look like we may not have a choice.

Doug

We have the ability and the technology to leave the earth now, even if just for space stations. If we dont leave soon, we never will and will have doomed ourselves as a species

[Doug1029]

21 hours ago, seanjo said:

While the Human population increases, or even stays at present levels, nothing we do makes any difference.

 

CO2 is plant food, crops are thriving.

Higher CO2 levels result in more leaf production and less seed production.  Good news if you like spinach and bad news if you like beer.

BUT:  Higher CO2 levels also host greater populations of leaf-eating insects.  There will be holes in your spinach.

Doug

[Doug1029]

25 minutes ago, Imaginarynumber1 said:

We have the ability and the technology to leave the earth now, even if just for space stations. If we dont leave soon, we never will and will have doomed ourselves as a species

Our space stations can't support themselves without continual re-supply missions from earth.  We will have to get past that limitation if we're ever going to become a space-faring civilization.  Unless we do that, our space colonies will be inextricably linked to our fate here on earth.

AND:  even if we can send a space mission to the stars, or even the outer planets, we can't take very many people or animals/plants with us, to say nothing of creating whole new ecosystems elsewhere,

Space is not the answer.

Doug

P.S.:  NASA isn't even researching reproduction in space.  If we're going to the stars, we will need to have babies en route.  We're not even close to leaving earth yet.

Doug

Edited October 9, 2018 by Doug1029

[Doug1029]

5 minutes ago, seanjo said:

The reason we have so much coal, is because of plant growth when CO2 was at higher levels peaking at 7000 ppm, plants thrived...you're not being very scientific are you? Glucose (C6H12O6) which is what plants produce through photosynthesis is derived from water and CO2, the more water and CO2 the more glucose. 

I'll see if I can dig up the citations for you.

The original CO2 experiments were kept running for 12 years.  At the end of this time, the amount of CO2 being sequestered was reversed.  Apparently, new plant material decays over a period of several years so that after an initial increase in sequestered carbon, the decay-rate catches up.  The effect is not permanent.

And your glucose observation in no way invalidates the changes in plant morphology brought on by increasing CO2.

 

How many years has it been since those coal forests existed?  We also had six-foot millipedes and dragon-flys with two-foot wingspans.  Those existed because we also had more O2 in the air.  The ecology has changed considerably since the Permian.

Doug

[Essan]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

So you admit life thrives in a rich CO2 environment, probably because of the rich plant growth?

Does anyone deny that?

The point is simply that modern cities, society and our entire way of living, especially in the west, has developed under ambient climatic conditions which, if they change, will prove traumatic for millions of people.   For modern (western)  humans, at present, the best level of CO2 - and consequential weather patterns and climate - is that which prevailed through the middle of the 20th century.  Anything else causes problems for us. Until we adjust.   Which may (for example) mean Siberia and Chad are the grain belts and the richest nations on Earth and the USA a drought ridden, poverty stricken, desert.   Yes,life will, however, go on.

[Doug1029]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

So you admit life thrives in a rich CO2 environment, probably because of the rich plant growth?

Was it high CO2, or high oxygen?  Or a combination?

Doug

[Doug1029]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

So you admit life thrives in a rich CO2 environment, probably because of the rich plant growth?

I promised you some papers on the topic.  Here's one:

Diaz, S., J. Grime, J. Harris and E. McPherson.  1993.  Evidence of a feedback mechanism limiting plant response to elevated carbon dioxide.  Nature, 364 616-617.https://www.nature.com/articles/364616a0

Basically, plant growth in response to elevated carbon dioxide is limited on both poor soils and high-quality soils.  This means that mineral nutrients are not limiting CO₂ response and thus there must be a feedback mechanism involved.

 

Here's one I mentioned above:

Arp, W.  1991.  Effects of source-sink relations on photosynthetic acclimation to elevated CO₂.  Plant, Cell and Environment, Oct. 1991.  https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-3040.1991.tb01450.x

Probably a fee for this one.  Initially, plants respond to increased CO₂ but this effect dimishes with time as a result of an imbalance of carbohydrates in the soil.

 

Here's a real good one:

Ainsworth, E. and S. Long.  2004.  What have we learned from 15 years of free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE)?  A meta-analytic review of the reponses of photosynthesis to rising CO₂.  New Phytologist.  165 (2) 351-372.

This covers most of what we've been discussing.  BTW:  There's some comparisons of C3 vs. C4 plants in here.  There is a thermal stress function induced by warming.  Average crop increases were 17%, compared to 28% and 35% in previous tests.  Woody species did not show an increase in growth.  Dark respiration was not studied.  High-frequency fluctuations in CO₂ like that obtained from Free-Air CO₂ Enrichment, shows little growth response - this is a warning not to read too much into Free-Air tests.

 

Poorter, H. and O. Nagel.  2000.  The role of biomass allocation in the growth response of plants to different levels of light, CO2, nutrients and water:  a quantitative review.  Functional Plant Biology.  27(12) 1191-1191.  http://www.publish.csiro.au/fp/PP99173_CO

There is a fee for this one.  Basically, it confirms the balance I mentioned above:  more leaves, fewer seeds,

 

That's enough to get serious students started.  Use Google Scholar and scopus TO TURN UP MORE ARTICLES THAN YOU EVER DREAMED EXISTED.

dOUG

[Doug1029]

4 minutes ago, seanjo said:

Human life has gone through Ice ages and Hot periods...we are adaptable, species die when they don't adapt.

As I keep saying, if we are going to be serious about this we need to reduce the Human population so the land can be returned to trees/plants; and if you are super serious, get off your plastic and silicon, electricity-guzzling computer/phone.

Constantly whining about a thing when using a medium that is partially responsible for that thing is hypocrisy.

Reducing human populations is the long-term solution.  That is coming about slowly.  Human populations will peak out about the end of this century at about 10 billion people.  We passed the inflection point in 1970 - the point where population is increasing, but at a decreasing rate.  The job of resource managers in the meantime is to clothe, feed and house that many people without destroying the systems needed to produce those things.

 

We will make use of electric transmission systems built to carry coal-fired power to carry wind power - we're already doing it.  We will make use of highways designed for gas-powered vehicles to run electric vehicles.  Most of this is simply changing the uses of things already invented for other purposes.

 

Human life has indeed gone through hot periods and cold periods.  One such period, about 67,000 years ago very nearly exterminated us.  But I have no doubt that we can survive nearly anything in the way of weather.  The problem is that our infrastructures can't.  Our crop production has seen tough times before - like Trump's trade war - but that is small compared with a three-year freeze, or complete desertification of the US grain belt.

Back in the 1960s we had a three-year supply of grain stored in elevators as a result of the govt's price-support programs.  But some Congressional nut-jobs thought that sounded like SOCIALISM, so they did away with our safety margin.  Our grain reserve is down to a few months.  Should climate change throw us a loop, we have nothing to fall back on.  And that's also part of the global warming problem.

Doug

[Doug1029]

9 minutes ago, seanjo said:

All though I will attempt to read them, I have no confidence in the present form of climate change peer review.

I have to admit that peer review lets some mistakes through.  The problem is that science is supposed to be cutting edge stuff.  And if you're the researcher, that means you are trying to publish a discovery that nobody else has even heard of, let along understands - even the experts doing the review.  The researcher is the only expert there is and he can't do the review.

But otherwise, climate science peer review works like peer review anywhere else.  Whether you like it or not, peer review is still the gold standard for truth.

Doug

[Essan]

1 hour ago, seanjo said:

Human life has gone through Ice ages and Hot periods...we are adaptable, species die when they don't adapt.

As I keep saying, if we are going to be serious about this we need to reduce the Human population so the land can be returned to trees/plants; and if you are super serious, get off your plastic and silicon, electricity-guzzling computer/phone.

Constantly whining about a thing when using a medium that is partially responsible for that thing is hypocrisy.

I am not whining. 

As for population, don't get me started