Hi Grim,

True or false ?

Even if no government does anything in the next hundred years to alleviate or ameliorate the climatic situation, temperatures will rise by about 1.2-1.5 degrees.

True or false ?

IF governments do do something about it, even switching to fifth-generation nuclear, etc., then the temperature rise will probably be a lot less.

True or false ?

Sea-levels have risen 2 inches in 120 years, and they will rise by about the same in the next hundred years. Any Pacific island which is only two inches above sea-level is in danger of being flooded.

True or false ?

Problem: average world temperatures have not risen in the last sixteen years.

True or false ?

So probably sea-levels also have not risen (IF there is some correlation between temperature rise and sea-level rise).

Possibly true or possibly false ?

Perhaps we should all be beavering away at trying to solve any problems associated with increased CO2 production, rather than doing nothing but yelling 'the sky is falling !'

Mind you, I enjoy one of MAD magazine's slogans: 'Don't just do something, stand there !'

Jo

Jo, you might like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0jaQCSSCS4

Bazz I'm perfectly happy with you wanting to develop alternative energy schemes, just as long as you don't want to waste my taxes on them. We have wasted quite enough on the scam of global warming to date, without wasting even more.

I hope you come up with a good one, cheaper than oil, & make your fortune doing it.

We obviously have the means to generate all the electricity we want, & once those taken in by the global warming scam realise the planet is actually cooling, they will be clamoring for more coal to be burnt doing so.

Of course this will have stuff all effect in stopping cooling, just as it has had stuff all effect on global warming.

If we are still around when we have burnt all the coal we will have to develop methane clathrate. I'm sure the folk of 1000 years from now will be able to develop a new fuel course, provided they can dig down through the hundreds of meters of ice that will probably be covering it by then.

Dear Bazz,

You need to Google an overview of global glaciation
from 110,000 to 12,500 years ago especially with regard to
North America and Northern Europe.

As I stated earlier even minor fluctuations in global
temperature can have drastic consequences. But I won't
go into all the details here - as by now they should be
known to us all.

Dear Hasbeen,

Yes, coal deposits may well last for a long time and can be
burned to generate energy as other resources fail. But the
use of a resource cannot be considered in isolation from
its potentially complex environmental impacts. The
burning of coal produces sulfur and carbon dioxide and the
more coal we burn, the more we pollute the atmosphere.
The sulfur helps form acid rain, which has a drastic effect
on another resource, forests.

Most of the trees that are to be cut for housing in the year 2030
are already growing and in many cases already dying. We will
have to rely for the foreseeable future on whatever
timberland can survive increasing acid acid rain over the next
few decades, but studies in the affected regions already show
losses of 20 to 30 percent in the growth and biomass of forests.

And the carbon dioxide from increased coal burning would
contribute to the "greenhouse effect." Therefore simple solutions
to society's energy needs turn out not to be so "simple"
after all. And other apparently simple solutions - such as the
use of winds, tides, or sunlight - still appear, after years
of intensive research, to be too inefficient or uneconomic for
large scale use at present. But we do have to keep trying.

Of course control of pollution is politically difficult -
it can be costly, technically complex, and sometimes when the
damage is irreversible - impossible. In general though, most
industrialised nations are now actively trying to limit the
effects of pollution, but the populous less developed societies
are more concerned with economic growth, and tend to see
pollution as part of the price they have to pay for it.

No Hasbeen, I don't see a need for government money, but one way or
another we are up for some big expenditure.

If our road transport is to change to natural gas that will be very
costly but gas should give us a lot of time to get electric cars and
trucks up to the required specs.
However it would mean putting a cap on gas exports.

Nuclear one way or another will have to come on line because world
peak coal is not all that far away. Again we should put a cap on coal
exports as we will need to stretch it out for many years.
The rest of the world will be in a bind with coal but we should look
after ourselves just like the rest of the world won't look after us
when the oil crunch arrives.

One area that might justify government expenditure is hot rocks.
It looks like commercial development is failing but there is an
enormous amount of free energy down there that it seems a pity to not use it,

Lucyface,

It must be so sad to be functionally illiterate:

I said "It would appear that the original article to which I referred" not "the article"

Perhaps you should read from the Wall street journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324549004579067532485712464.html

"A more immediately relevant measure of likely warming has also come down: "transient climate response" (TCR)—the actual temperature change expected from a doubling of carbon dioxide about 70 years from now, without the delayed effects that come in the next century. The new report will say that this change is "likely" to be 1 to 2.5 degrees Celsius and "extremely unlikely" to be greater than 3 degrees. This again is lower than when last estimated in 2007 ("very likely" warming of 1 to 3 degrees Celsius, based on models, or 1 to 3.5 degrees, based on observational studies).

Most experts believe that warming of less than 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels will result in no net economic and ecological damage. Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range of the IPCC's emissions scenarios) it is likely that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.

Warming of 1.2C by 2083 (0.8 degrees have already occurred), most of which is predicted to happen in cold areas in winter and at night, would extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth—because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher.

Up to two degrees of warming, these benefits will generally outweigh the harmful effects, such as more extreme weather or rising sea levels, which even the IPCC concedes will be only about 1 to 3 feet during this period."

The end result is still that the effects of climate change are not as severe as the Greenies would have us believe.