A new Gallup poll finds that "most Americans believe it will be a decade or more before the manifestations of global warming begin to wreak havoc."
Meanwhile, from Seth Borenstein's account of the leaked draft of the IPCC WGII report (which I wrote about here):
"Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent," the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report.
And here's some of the magical delights we can look forward to in coming years:
* Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin Americans who now have water will be short of it in less than 20 years. By 2050, more than 1 billion people in Asia could face water shortages. By 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion people, depending on the level of greenhouse gases that cars and industry spew into the air.
* Death rates for the world's poor from global warming-related illnesses, such as malnutrition and diarrhea, will rise by 2030. Malaria and dengue fever, as well as illnesses from eating contaminated shellfish, are likely to grow.
* Europe's small glaciers will disappear with many of the continent's large glaciers shrinking dramatically by 2050. And half of Europe's plant species could be vulnerable, endangered or extinct by 2100.
* By 2080, between 200 million and 600 million people could be hungry because of global warming's effects.
* About 100 million people each year could be flooded by 2080 by rising seas.
* Smog in U.S. cities will worsen and "ozone-related deaths from climate (will) increase by approximately 4.5 percent for the mid-2050s, compared with 1990s levels," turning a small health risk into a substantial one.
* Polar bears in the wild and other animals will be pushed to extinction.
* At first, more food will be grown. For example, soybean and rice yields in Latin America will increase starting in a couple of years. Areas outside the tropics, especially the northern latitudes, will see longer growing seasons and healthier forests.
Nonetheless, Midwesterners have "no alternative" but to build a bunch of coal plants. Sorry, Africans and Latin Americans and glaciers and hungry people and flooded people and diseased people and polar bears!
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kmp Posted 6:20 am
12 Mar 2007
I'd like to see a list of stats that are global warming-related and will happen by 2010: number of species gone extinct, sea level rise, increase in violent storms, $$$ spent on recovery from violent storms, acres of coastline eroded, pounds of soil lost from our forests, amount of rain that should have fallen in Arizona that won't and amount of rain that should not be falling in Maine but will. Although the list above is clearly horrow-show material, it is also in the realm of things so big and/or horrible that it is difficult to wrap your brain around them. How about a list like the below?
-In 2010, a pound of USDA beef will cost $17.99.
-In 2010, you will spend an average of 40% of your household earnings on transportation.
-In 2010, America will have lost forever 70 species of birds and 300 species of amphibians. Insect species, however, will continue to proliferate due to the lack of natural predators - there will be twice as many mosquitoes in your backyard in 2010.
-In 2010, the average American household will pay $237 in taxes toward disaster relief related to violent storm recovery.
I don't know if such a list is possible to provide but I think it would have much greater impact.
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:40 am
12 Mar 2007
It's a far leap from using a climate model to predicting global mean temperatures to estimating specific results such a famine.
There's a whole chain of logic and causality implied there that just is not supported by any theory or fact.
I have said, just off-the-cuff because that's about the level of discussion the other side uses, that we will see vast increase in fertile land because of global warming. And recently I was reading that parts of the Sahara are getting more rainfall and deserts are retreating in places.
See, these 3 times removed effects of global warming are even less understood than the primary mechanisms.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:42 am
12 Mar 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjlJ_CS_xWw
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ataremove Posted 7:20 am
12 Mar 2007
For most citizens the way to cope with climate change is to act dumb and play smart.
In the fall of 1999, I was talking with the man (that's MAN not "guy") who farms my parents land. He said that sunflowers did very well that year, but the wheat (the usual big crop in south-central North Dakota) did not do well, only about half the yeild he usually gets. He said, "It was too wet for wheat."
That was on November 8, 1999, south of Jamestown, ND. The air temperature was 75 degrees F.
I know, that's all anecdotal information. But all the same, the public is aware of global warming. And most of them are saying, "BRING IT ON, BABY!"
Also, I couldn't give a hang about polar bears. Where were they 14,000 years ago? Certainly not Hudson Bay, which seems to be their main focal point the last few decades.
ataremove
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Zarkov Posted 8:42 am
12 Mar 2007
"Beware your wishes"
I think a time frame of 10 years will see massive changes to civilisation's structure. And none of them will be for anyone's good.
Yep, in your time-frame.
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SMLowry Posted 8:46 am
12 Mar 2007
I think it's an unfortunate (to put it mildly) circumstance when people, many of whom are parents and grandparents, aren't willing or able to grasp anything longer term than ten years. What kind of culture have we created if that's really the case? What I'd like to know, and maybe this information will be in the actual report, is how many of these awful calamities are inevitable and how many of them can be prevented if we do . . . whatever. Big IF, I know, but still.
When reports like these come out, confirming what I've suspected but really, really bad news, very depressing to hear, I share the information wherever I can, including in my column in the local paper. Sometimes I feel like a broken record. I half expect the editor to call me one day and say, "Susan, I'm sorry but we can't run this column. Can't you write about something else?" I will say I've gone a month without a major climate change piece, but I feel another one coming on soon.
I feel like a little kid stamping her foot in frustration, but I just don't get why we, and by "we" I mean all of us and all of our institutions, governments, the whole ball of wax, why we aren't trashing business-dailylife-as-usual to devote our time and energy, and our money (instead of on war), everything, to finding and developing solutions and making and encouraging serious lifestyle changes. Yes, yes, I know there are logical reasons why, most having to do with money, but we need to make the transformations anyway. Worrying about money today with that future facing us? Oh my . . .
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Zarkov Posted 1:38 pm
12 Mar 2007
Well it's the ghost in the machine. Deep inside everybody knows its the end. For most it is inevitable..... for some, the frustration of the nihilist momentum of the mass is too much to bear, and they commit suicide. "What can I do alone" they say.
You see, the human population is mentally poisoned by bio toxic substances, they are medicated, sedated and are happy for their fate. The children ?, who cares for the children, no not like YOUR children, but the new generation children. NO One.
There is much we can do... but no one is listening. Its like reading a book, and forgetting the last page's contents, so then re-reading... ad infinitum. It is too hard, too many words... just toooo unbelievable.
Anyone interested in helping me write a book ?
A story of HOPE.
I have hope you see, I am not medicated.... I removed these psycho toxic everyday poisons from my body and brain 40 years ago.
I think we can have a go, but I call for revolution. The inertia of the masses must be countered.
We have mind to mind communication (Internet), we could organise like never before... this really is the end times unless we act cooperatively.
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dobermanmacleod Posted 2:34 pm
12 Mar 2007
Hydrate (ice with trapped methane) contains TWICE the carbon as all fossil fuels combined. Unlike fossil fuels which emit greenhouse gas (GHG) when burned, hydrate releases GHG when it melts.
This hydrate has melted before with catastrophic results. A trigger upsets the carbon budget, and a chain reaction of melting hydrate causes a vicious circle of runaway global warming. Mankind's GHG emissions are much larger than past triggers to severe runaway global warming episodes, so we can expect the chain reaction to start much quicker, unfold much much faster, and therefore be much, much, much more severe.
The IPCC didn't include either melting hydrate or the vicious circle because Siberia is a relatively new development (but is unfolding rapidly, and proving what I've written above). Mankind doesn't have decades to slowly get their GHG emissions under control, and thus probably will not be able to avoid triggering a severe runaway global warming episode that will kill most people by the end of the century.
The only hope is to remove the CO2 from the air after it has been emitted.
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