Humanity Itself

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,219]

This thread seems quite timely, hence my digging it back up, in view of the latest discovery by scientists looking into the whole Global Warming, freak weather syndrome.

As some of you may have read, Scientists have expressed excitement in discovering that our Seafaring ancestors tended to keep quite meticulous Ship logs detailing tides, currents, weather conditions, the whole works.

While they have only just begun to scratch the surface they have found that our freak weather, attributed to man made climate change, is not freak at all. Ships logs have highlighted that the likes of Captain Cook and Lord Nelson experienced the same type of freak weather patterns, some which have mirrored our current ones in both type and location.

Such is the wealth of information, it is calculated that it could take quite some time to log all the information available and build a picture of Climate change from the earliest records going back to the 17th Century and now.

If their preliminary findings are substansiated, it would appear that we have all been sold a pup, climate change, freak weather, it was all here long before and certainly could not have been man made.

Will the truth finally out

 

Well, here's hoping you're right!

 

I didn't really start this thread specifically to discuss global warming, there's as much of a chance to us all (apart from Clive) falling pray to plagues or nuclear war.

 

I'm not too sure how scientists have just figured out that seafarers of yore kept records of the climate. Books by British explorers like William Dampier, Joseph Banks and Alfred Maudslay, which are littered with detailed references to the weather, have been around for centuries. Nor do I think it's news to anyone that there has been freakish weather in the past. There were the volcanic winters of 536 and 1816 which led to "years without summer", going further back to 38AD, a massive storm surge on the Thames killed ten thousand people, still Britain's worst natural disaster.

 

So yes, there has always been bad weather, but you may be interested to know that the world has been hotter on average over the last fifty years than it ever has been in the last ten thousand years. If the global average temperature was to rise by just one more degree, the world will be hotter than it has been for the last million years. Scientists predict that the world could heat up by as much as six degrees over the next one hundred and fifty years, there is no evidence anywhere to suggest that the planet has ever before warmed up that much before in such a short space of time. The effects on us all will be catastrophic. I find it very hard to believe that humans have nothing whatsoever to do with this sudden acceleration of climate change.

 

In light of that, and bearing in mind the continuing threat of diseases, nutters with large bombs, overpopulation, etc, I continue to look to our collective futures with much pessimism. But please continue to try and convince me otherwise, LFN, I'd love to stop thinking the sky is about to fall on my head.

Yes, there are many references to climate from a whole wealth of sources, as you have alluded. I think that, perhaps, the current excitement is because, while there are plenty of references to previous climate conditions/changes, as yet, there has been nothing around that could be linked together to actually create a clearer and more concise data that could be traced, not sporadically, but continuously, virtually week on week, year on year for centuries.

How do scientists know that the world has been hotter in the last 50 years than the last ten thousand? Do they REALLY know for certain that the last 50 years in the 11th century were not equally as hot? What is their scientific reasoning for the Earth now cooling, which they have conceded it is.

Are we talking about Global Warming and climate change as purely man made or a natural cycle that man has artificially speeded up?

Yes,Im cynical!!

When you started this thread, the thrust of it was not climate focused, yet it would appear that peoples fears and realities as to whether we are all doomed is now firmly planted into Global warming than a Nuclear winter.

20 years ago we didnt even know what Global Warming was, how things move forward.

DDT, the sky isnt about to fall in!

[Banshees Scream 110]

Is Global Warming all it's been made out to be? Is Global Warming like a disease that will end us all? Will we have to run from it? Will we have to hide from it? Is Global Warming the classic horror that will chase us to our death spot? No, of course not. Is Global Warming as serious as it's been advertized? No really. Should Global Warming be given some form of recognition? Yes. Why? Because Global Warming itself opens other doors of realization. Global warming reminds us that our resources will be even more scarce somewhere down that narrow road of time. Global Warming advises us to design solutions now instead of later. Global Warming is irreversible, but it's effects can be limited upon how we manage our technology. What else do I have to say? How can we continue our lifestyles in a modern time? I think governments should make scientists earn their money.

[Godot 149]

DDT, the sky isn't about to fall in!

That's what they said to Columbus (roughly) before he fell off the edge of the world. Well he did, didn't he?

[CarolAnn 926]

DDT, the sky isn't about to fall in!

That's what they said to Columbus (roughly) before he fell off the edge of the world. Well he did, didn't he?

 

Of course he did. Swoop! Right over the side....but he was caught by the circumfence and saved by a water troll.

[Terminator 13]

Is Global Warming all it's been made out to be? Is Global Warming like a disease that will end us all? Will we have to run from it? Will we have to hide from it? Is Global Warming the classic horror that will chase us to our death spot?

 

Insightful as ever. There are some scientists warning that the Gulf Stream could switch off, others are positing that the world could turn to an ice-ball; others are going down the global warming route. The only positive thing I can take out of all this is that, at least some science is being thrown at global issues.

 

Until there is a concensus, scientists will be polarised (due to their personal bias), I currently trust neither polarise view because of their own motivation to prove their "ideas". However, I do keep abreast of developments in this particular field.

 

What did they say on Dragnet? Oh yeah, "Just the facts, ma'am".

[Dave to the Grave 11]

Apparently, all we need to do is eat kangaroo.

[Gunjaman5000 30]

Apparently, all we need to do is eat kangaroo.

If that's the case, I helped out in a small way on Satdee night. Marinated for a couple of days in god knows what, it wasn't half bad.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

. What would happen if a huge meteor hit planet Earth. With some Pink Floyd.

[CE Live 0]

Senator Barack Obama has set a goal which will end our dependency on the Middle East for oil within the next decade.

 

And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power, and solar power and the next generation of biofuels -- an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."

[Cowboy Ronnie 78]

. What would happen if a huge meteor hit planet Earth. With some Pink Floyd.

 

Wouldn't Bruce Willis have jumped out of a space shuttle and nuked it long before then? And if not, surely the tidal waves would cool all the molten hot magma that the gloomy Gusses who made that video are so worried about.

 

We'd be fine. Totally and utterly fine.

 

[Edit - to cheer myself up after my baseball team lost today I watched the whole vid to the end, and the top notch scientist producers advise that the "evidence show us that this has happened at leasts [sic] 6 times in Earths history". Sounds provable.]

[DevonDeathTrip 2,358]

John Christopher's excellent post apocalyptic novel "The Death Of Grass", is the book of the week on Radio 4:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/whour_drama.shtml

 

Doom, gloom and Radio 4, I couldn't be happier.

 

A long forgotten film based on the book is availible on You Tube, it also has a smallish early role from Wendy Richard as a manipualtive tart......

 

John Christopher (real name Samuel Youd) is still alive, he'll be 87 this year and if he lives until April, he will become one of a rather select band of authors who have lived to see their work published as a Penguin Classic. John Updike was another. Actually, thinking about it, there might be quite a few others.

 

I still think we're all doomed, btw.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

It's all going to be kicking off in my neck of the woods this week, with plenty of argy bargy planned for the G20 protests. Today sees the hors d'oeuvres, with a march and rally, while the tasty main course is on Wednesday, or Financial Fools' Day, when the anarchists come out to play.

 

All this and a bunch of toffs descending on us to watch two boats go down the river...

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

Maybe the rapidly declining world bee population will prove to be our nemesis.

 

According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left"

Who Killed the Honey Bee? documentary on BBC4, 23rd April. We're all doomed, as well you know.

 

 

(Edit: may as well slip this bit of global warming bumf in here while I'm at it.)

[Rotten Ali 600]

Well, I've finished reading a well informed book - "The Revenge of Gaia" by James Lovelock.

 

Yep, we are all stuffed. What we are all about to wreck in the last two hundred years will take nature at least 200,000 years to put right. I conclude Human nature is too hard to change. Therefore it won't be changed in time to save the envionment as we know it.

 

And that's the crux we face, I say unless we have laws right now propossing :-

 

1. All the power companies around the world must not build more fossil fuel power plants, and they must be closed down asap.

2. Suspend all efforts to find new oil and gas wells.

3. Investment by all countries in new nuclear power stations.

4. The car companies must only from now on, build electric cars, and put in motion plans to allow retro fit electric motors to cars already built.

5. The airline companies must have imposed on them tax to reflect the harm they are doing. This would be a punitive level and make taking a flight out of nessessitiy. The rest of us can sail, or take an airship.

6. More reliance must be made of green renewable power - that's not to say wind power because tidal power is more effective.

7. Ending of benifits to families that have more than 1 child. Because the planet can't cope with 7 billion people on it.

8. The common right to all, to elect to have an assisted death.

9. Initiation of a project to build a spaced based sun sheild to shade the polar regions to stop more melting.

10. Food production to be limited to less envomentally harmfully methods such as more pigs less cows.

11. Monitor the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and not roll back these new laws untill it is at least halved.

 

In short I don't think 1 of these things will be done because of vested interests and unwillingness to look at the harm we are really causing. That locks us into catastrophic sea-level rise of about 14 metres in the the next 25 years and 70 metres in the next 100 years and half the world's populus having to find new homes. It also points to us having less than half the food and fresh water we need and living at mean temperatures about 8 degrees hotter than current.

Year 2075, Welcome to archipeligo Great Britain, popualition 200 million, capital Sheffield, climate like the Philipeans and almost no food to go round.

[Tuber Mirum 125]

They say this sort of thing could provide enormous amounts of energy in the future.

No need to go messing around with dangerous old nuclear power. It can have dangerous side effects as anyone knows who has read Workington Dynamo.

[themaninblack 2,112]

Well, I've finished reading a well informed book - "The Revenge of Gaia" by James Lovelock.

 

Yep, we are all stuffed. What we are all about to wreck in the last two hundred years will take nature at least 200,000 years to put right. I conclude Human nature is too hard to change. Therefore it won't be changed in time to save the envionment as we know it.

 

And that's the crux we face, I say unless we have laws right now propossing :-

 

1. All the power companies around the world must not build more fossil fuel power plants, and they must be closed down asap.

2. Suspend all efforts to find new oil and gas wells.

3. Investment by all countries in new nuclear power stations.

4. The car companies must only from now on, build electric cars, and put in motion plans to allow retro fit electric motors to cars already built.

5. The airline companies must have imposed on them tax to reflect the harm they are doing. This would be a punitive level and make taking a flight out of nessessitiy. The rest of us can sail, or take an airship.

6. More reliance must be made of green renewable power - that's not to say wind power because tidal power is more effective.

7. Ending of benifits to families that have more than 1 child. Because the planet can't cope with 7 billion people on it.

8. The common right to all, to elect to have an assisted death.

9. Initiation of a project to build a spaced based sun sheild to shade the polar regions to stop more melting.

10. Food production to be limited to less envomentally harmfully methods such as more pigs less cows.

11. Monitor the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and not roll back these new laws untill it is at least halved.

 

In short I don't think 1 of these things will be done because of vested interests and unwillingness to look at the harm we are really causing. That locks us into catastrophic sea-level rise of about 14 metres in the the next 25 years and 70 metres in the next 100 years and half the world's populus having to find new homes. It also points to us having less than half the food and fresh water we need and living at mean temperatures about 8 degrees hotter than current.

Year 2075, Welcome to archipeligo Great Britain, popualition 200 million, capital Sheffield, climate like the Philipeans and almost no food to go round.

 

I've never quite understood this argument about 'nature', of what nature is, what it's supposed to be and how we, as humans, are 'destroying' this nature.

 

There is no natural order. The World as we know it, came together by sheer chance. Trees, meadows, plants, eco-systems: They just evolved from the circumstances in which the planet was formed. It's not definitive. The Earth has 'survived' for four and a half billion years and will last well beyond the human race. Even it it ends up a barren rock.

 

Save the Earth? The Earth doesn't give a damn, it's just there! It's all about human survival and on that we shouldn't be too ashamed to admit that at the end of the day, it's about the human race's survival that we should be concerned with...

[Terminator 13]

Well, I've finished reading a well informed book - "The Revenge of Gaia" by James Lovelock.

 

Yep, we are all stuffed. What we are all about to wreck in the last two hundred years will take nature at least 200,000 years to put right. I conclude Human nature is too hard to change. Therefore it won't be changed in time to save the envionment as we know it.

 

And that's the crux we face, I say unless we have laws right now propossing :-

 

1. All the power companies around the world must not build more fossil fuel power plants, and they must be closed down asap.

2. Suspend all efforts to find new oil and gas wells.

3. Investment by all countries in new nuclear power stations.

4. The car companies must only from now on, build electric cars, and put in motion plans to allow retro fit electric motors to cars already built.

5. The airline companies must have imposed on them tax to reflect the harm they are doing. This would be a punitive level and make taking a flight out of nessessitiy. The rest of us can sail, or take an airship.

6. More reliance must be made of green renewable power - that's not to say wind power because tidal power is more effective.

7. Ending of benifits to families that have more than 1 child. Because the planet can't cope with 7 billion people on it.

8. The common right to all, to elect to have an assisted death.

9. Initiation of a project to build a spaced based sun sheild to shade the polar regions to stop more melting.

10. Food production to be limited to less envomentally harmfully methods such as more pigs less cows.

11. Monitor the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and not roll back these new laws untill it is at least halved.

 

In short I don't think 1 of these things will be done because of vested interests and unwillingness to look at the harm we are really causing. That locks us into catastrophic sea-level rise of about 14 metres in the the next 25 years and 70 metres in the next 100 years and half the world's populus having to find new homes. It also points to us having less than half the food and fresh water we need and living at mean temperatures about 8 degrees hotter than current.

Year 2075, Welcome to archipeligo Great Britain, popualition 200 million, capital Sheffield, climate like the Philipeans and almost no food to go round.

Are we polluters also responsible for the increasing temperatures on the other planets within our solar system? Perhaps we are just caught up in a grand-scale solar heating cycle(?)

[Tuber Mirum 125]

Quite right, and apart from that the human race and everything it does, makes and destroys is just as much nature as any tree, sperm whale or gulf stream.

Which doesn't make it any better if we wipe ourselves out of course.

[Windsor 2,233]

Population control. The reason why we should stop Children in Need and Comic Relief etc. Leave them to die until they correct their population levels to a more sustainable size. It will happen to us all one day.

Perhaps selfishness and unethical self interest is the only way ahead. Let them die, so that there are enough resourses for us (before they grow a set of balls and keep all their resources for themselves).

[Tuber Mirum 125]

What we need is a decent war to keep the population down.

It's over sixty years since the last real one.

Fewer surgical strikes and plenty of carpet bombing.

 

Or a plague. That would do it too.

[Windsor 2,233]

Or a plague. That would do it too.

 

Not a far fetched view. The Green parties of the 1980's believed that HIV/AIDS was a good thing as a means of population control. They thought it should be allowed to run its course, killing off a good proportion of the world population.

 

I'm sure bird flu will be of some use - as soon as it stops being so lame.

[Lard Bazaar 3,800]

Compulsory sterilisation of all chavs.

[TAFKAG 70]

Today is Earth Day, founded by maritime mincer Gaylord Nelson.

 

The activist who came up with the concept, John McConnell, appears to be 94.

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,219]

It seems that the cynics have just gone 1-0 up.......

[Tuber Mirum 125]

It seems that the cynics have just gone 1-0 up.......

I'd say that's perfectly normal behaviour for research scientists who know before they start which result they're supposed to get.