Climate Change

[ronin17]

Just a quick correction. Only 36% believed humans are creating a global warming crisis. So that would be 64% that don't believe humans are responsible. Every study can be scrutinized as to the motives of the particular participants but that also works both ways. I like to read as much of differing opinions as I can since my expertise does not extend to climate science.

Yes, studies can be scrutinized but science cannot be faked. Like math. The more research you'll do bro you'll find out that the biggest science skeptics and global warming skeptics that are the most vocal are the same people that were hired to dispute that nicotine in cigarettes are addictive and kill people the exact same firms.

Political hitmen.

 

[ronin17]

It's all about money. It's no coincidence that the biggest climate change skeptics have been hired by gas and oil exploration and industry I mean it's pretty simple to see what's been going on. In my humble opinion.

 

[GigaloRob]

It's all about money. It's no coincidence that the biggest climate change skeptics have been hired by gas and oil exploration and industry I mean it's pretty simple to see what's been going on. In my humble opinion.

Are you implying there is not big money on the other side? If I am to follow the money it would certainly lead to both sides. People and organizations are rich because of climate change hysteria. Governments are throwing money at all these organizations left and right to the tune of billions of dollars. I can recognize oil,coal,gas and similar industries benefiting from downplaying or "denying" the climate change claims. I also recognize the insane amount of money on the other side to push their agenda.

 

[XKawN]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

For 2 C target developed countries have to reach zero emissions by 2035.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Nuclear Thread ...

 

[ronin17]

Nuclear Thread ...

I would like to ask the author how he feels about the nuclear reactor in Japan that is still leaking after the earthquake.

They are finding unprecedented levels of cesium in tuna in California and Hawaii.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Brand U, Blamey N, Garbelli C, et al. Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth's greatest mass extinction. Palaeoworld 2016;25(4):496-507. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871174X16300488

The cause for the end Permian mass extinction, the greatest challenge life on Earth faced in its geologic history, is still hotly debated by scientists. The most significant marker of this event is the negative δ13C shift and rebound recorded in marine carbonates with a duration ranging from 2000 to 19 000 years depending on localities and sedimentation rates. Leading causes for the event are Siberian trap volcanism and the emission of greenhouse gases with consequent global warming. Measurements of gases vaulted in calcite of end Permian brachiopods and whole rock document significant differences in normal atmospheric equilibrium concentration in gases between modern and end Permian seawaters. The gas composition of the end Permian brachiopod-inclusions reflects dramatically higher seawater carbon dioxide and methane contents leading up to the biotic event. Initial global warming of 8–11 °C sourced by isotopically light carbon dioxide from volcanic emissions triggered the release of isotopically lighter methane from permafrost and shelf sediment methane hydrates. Consequently, the huge quantities of methane emitted into the atmosphere and the oceans accelerated global warming and marked the negative δ13C spike observed in marine carbonates, documenting the onset of the mass extinction period. The rapidity of the methane hydrate emission lasting from several years to thousands of years was tempered by the equally rapid oxidation of the atmospheric and oceanic methane that gradually reduced its warming potential but not before global warming had reached levels lethal to most life on land and in the oceans. Based on measurements of gases trapped in biogenic and abiogenic calcite, the release of methane (of ∼3–14% of total C stored) from permafrost and shelf sediment methane hydrate is deemed the ultimate source and cause for the dramatic life-changing global warming (GMAT > 34 °C) and oceanic negative-carbon isotope excursion observed at the end Permian. Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic. The end Permian holds an important lesson for humanity regarding the issue it faces today with greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and climate change.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1509519750.html

Clive Hamilton’s book “Defiant Earth – The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene” is not for the faint-hearted. Basically, its thesis is that the Earth – and us along with it – is going down the tubes.

Our rampant, irrational use of the planet and its resources, including our exploitation of climate-changing fossil fuels, means we are interfering and upsetting the functioning of the Earth system that sustains us.

“This bizarre situation, in which we have become potent enough to change the course of the Earth yet seem unable to regulate ourselves, contradicts every modern belief about the kind of creature a human being is,” says Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

The idea of the Anthropocene was first put forward by the Nobel prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000, in order to capture what was felt to be an entirely new time in the geological scale that segments the Earth’s history.

Anthropocene, says Hamilton, is a term describing a rupture in the functioning of the Earth system as a whole.

There are those who welcome this new era: if humanity is capable of altering the Earth system in such a profound way, it can surely control the climate and regulate the Earth through geoengineering and other methods.

Hamilton dismisses the concepts of what he terms the ecomodernists. We are entering uncharted territory. The forces of nature have been roused from their Holocene slumber, the climate system is becoming ever more energetic.

“Humans have never been more potent and have never exercised more domination over nature,” Hamilton says, “yet we are now vulnerable to the power of nature in a way we have not known for at least 10,000 years, since the last great ice-sheets finally retreated … ”

In this new, unstable and unpredictable geological era, says Hamilton, we must face the brutal reality that, as a result of our actions, we are contemplating our own extinction.