xkcd: Earth Temperature Timeline

More doom and gloom

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/obama-predicts-submerged-cities-mass-migrations-displaced-nations-food

In a speech to the United Nations Tuesday, President Barack Obama said if the world does not “act boldly” on climate change, there will be "mass migrations," submerged cities and "decimated" food supplies.

“If we don’t act boldly, the bill that could come due will be mass migrations and cities submerged and nations displaced and food supplies decimated and conflicts born of despair,” said Obama.

 
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http://xkcd.com/1732/

Because this is, unfortunately, a bit of a political topic. Randall Munroe does some phenomenal work. This is an important visualization.

earth_temperature_timeline.png


 
That is an interesting table, even just from an historical timeline perspective.

It does beg the question: what happens if we stay on the current path?

That's important because "massive action to limit emissions" will cost human lives in developing (and even developed) nations.

 
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So we're warmer now than we were during the last ice age? Is that supposed to be a bad thing?

And I'm pretty sure most reading have show slower/leveled warming over the last 15 years or so. Why does his graph have a spike?

 
cm husker said:
That is an interesting table, even just from an historical timeline perspective.

It does beg the question: what happens if we stay on the current path?

That's important because "massive action to limit emissions" will cost human lives in developing (and even developed) nations.
Click to expand...
Every decision made on any topic costs lives at some level. That is a red herring.


Mavric said:
So we're warmer now than we were during the last ice age? Is that supposed to be a bad thing?And I'm pretty sure most reading have show slower/leveled warming over the last 15 years or so. Why does his graph have a spike?
Click to expand...
NASA Study Finds There Was No "Pause" In Climate Change
The study, published in Science, observed two decades of data and found that the Earths extra heat was being redistributed by the worlds largest oceans. Researchers found that cooling in the top 100-meter layer of the Pacific Ocean was mainly compensated by warming in the 100- to 300-meter layer of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Our findings support the idea that the Indo-Pacific interaction in the upper-level water (0300 m depth) regulated global surface temperature over the past two decades and can fully account for the recently observed hiatus, researchers wrote in the paper.
Click to expand...
Screen-Shot-2015-06-05-at-11.28.40-AM.png
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/earthmatters/2015/06/05/parsing-the-details-of-the-warming-hiatus/
 
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ZRod said:
cm husker said:
That is an interesting table, even just from an historical timeline perspective.

It does beg the question: what happens if we stay on the current path?

That's important because "massive action to limit emissions" will cost human lives in developing (and even developed) nations.
Click to expand...
Every decision made on any topic costs lives at some level. That is a red herring.
Click to expand...

It's not a red herring. It's the core issue when assessing whether we should sacrifice current improvements and global progress to stave off future risks.

The problem with some is that they stop their analysis at "is the world warming" and never ask "what is the actual consequence of a warming trend."

 
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cm husker said:
ZRod said:
cm husker said:
That is an interesting table, even just from an historical timeline perspective.

It does beg the question: what happens if we stay on the current path?

That's important because "massive action to limit emissions" will cost human lives in developing (and even developed) nations.
Click to expand...
Every decision made on any topic costs lives at some level. That is a red herring.
Click to expand...
It's not a red herring. It's the core issue when assessing whether we should sacrifice current improvements and global progress to stave off future risks.

The problem with some is that they stop their analysis at "is the world warming" and never ask "what is the actual consequence of a warming trend."
Click to expand...
It is a red herring when it distracts from the issue. People will die either way.
 
ZRod said:
cm husker said:
ZRod said:
cm husker said:
That is an interesting table, even just from an historical timeline perspective.

It does beg the question: what happens if we stay on the current path?

That's important because "massive action to limit emissions" will cost human lives in developing (and even developed) nations.
Click to expand...
Every decision made on any topic costs lives at some level. That is a red herring.
Click to expand...
It's not a red herring. It's the core issue when assessing whether we should sacrifice current improvements and global progress to stave off future risks.

The problem with some is that they stop their analysis at "is the world warming" and never ask "what is the actual consequence of a warming trend."
Click to expand...
It is a red herring when it distracts from the issue. People will die either way.
Click to expand...

Will people die either way? What is the evidence that people will die if there's a 2 deg increase in temp versus the historic average?

Number of people dying is the issue, and I think a "massive action to limit emissions" will absolutely cost lives in developing US communities and foreign nations.

Then again, it's hard to even envision what such an initiative means in real terms. Meaningful enforcement of such restrictions seems like fantasy.

 
Here's an article that claims 500k per year world wide could die due to global warming's impact on food production.

My question is, how many will die if they can't get access to food due to restriction on energy use? Based on history in Ethiopia and China, I think many more than 500k.

That calculation is anything but a red herring.

And I find the 500k estimate suspect, as it's pretty tangential... it's not saying that global warming will cause starvation, but rather that a change in nutrients may lead to earlier death by other disease.

Here's another article, which contains conclusions that suffer from the same lack of perspective: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/may/29/1

 
My links are based on me trying to figure out the risks associated with global warming. When I read them, I see some tenuous conclusions and no examination, or even mention of, the lives put at risk by cutting emissions back.

I also have seen no credible argument about how such restrictions could be effectively enforced.

 
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