real-news or fake-news?

[mac]

Those who deny we're responsible for causing climate-change may never be prepared to accept it as fact no matter how much evidence is produced. But we all know that weather is real and changing weather is undeniable - as is pollution.

That humankind is responsible for pollution and the effects on our environment are also undeniable but the debate will continue about how much impact humankind's activities are having on our climate.

Here's the place to have your say!

 

[bluebird]

To me it's quite clear -- humans have severely impacted the environment, including greatly increasing the rate of climate change in a detrimental way. Yes, we can debate the degree to which this is the case, though not much -- the evidence shows that while some degree of climate change is natural, humanity is overwhelmingly responsible for the increase in detrimental climate change over the past 50-100 years or so. Anyone who denies that is an idiot.

 

[mac]

I don't need to be persuaded that climate change has been significantly impacted by humankind's activities and I see all climate change as detrimental. Scientists, though, can't definitively prove the situation but for me there is abundant evidence, more than enough to persuade me.

But being a little mischievous now, doesn't that sound similar to the notion of life after death, an afterlife? Neither scientists nor anyone else can prove (or disprove) life continues beyond the grave but I find an abundance of evidence that's the case.

Would it be fair for me to say that those who aren't persuaded by evidence are idiots?

 

[mac]

I listen to the words folk use - carefully. I listen to what they're saying and when it comes to weather reporters and forecasters I listen especially carefully. Often in Arizona the local forecasters will talk excitedly about 'record-breaking' temperatures when they mean that there MIGHT be a high - by a tenth of a degree, statistically insignificant - in certain areas on a particular anniversary day. In other words it might be fractionally hotter on a particular day than it was on the same date a year ago..... As dear Frank Carson use to say "It's der way I tell 'em."

Blame hyperbole, blame the programme controllers desperate to catch viewer attention, maintain the ratings when actually there's nothing to be said of any true importance. "It's going to be very hot today, similar to the way it was very hot yesterday and the day before that...." That would sum up Valley weather reports for the whole Metro Phoenix area and beyond much of the time. But, no, the weather has to be 'bigged' up so it's the hottest, windiest, wettest! I'm sure AZ isn't exceptional because I've seen similar in other states and here at home in the UK too.

It makes me wonder just how many of the record highs, the record lows, the heaviest rainfalls, the deepest snowpacks etc. there truly are - and I'm not a climate-change detractor. Behind the headlines there may be additional data that go on to tell us that the highest, lowest, wettest, windiest conditions (or what have you) are those recorded since the last recorded ones.

Sometimes similar conditions will have occurred a few years or a few decades ago but the point is that similar extremes have usually happened before, sometimes long before humankind's activities on the present scale and with their present impact. But some won't have happened in recorded history or fossil records etc. (eg the polar ice caps, melting permafrost)

What may become the new normal, though, is that more extremes and more often will be experienced widely. Not necessarily the hottest but perhaps the longest hot period at an unusual time of the season. Perhaps the most intense rainfall over a longer-than-usual period than is usually experienced.

These are the weather extremes I think we'll face - more of them and lasting longer. Not relentlessly increasing temperatures - 'global warming' - but comparatively small increases but leading to massive impacts more often and for longer, sometimes in ways not experienced in earlier times.

 

[bluebird]

I don't need to be persuaded that climate change has been significantly impacted by humankind's activities and I see all climate change as detrimental. Scientists, though, can't definitively prove the situation but for me there is abundant evidence, more than enough to persuade me.

But being a little mischievous now, doesn't that sound similar to the notion of life after death, an afterlife? Neither scientists nor anyone else can prove (or disprove) life continues beyond the grave but I find an abundance of evidence that's the case.

Would it be fair for me to say that those who aren't persuaded by evidence are idiots?

Lol. I hope you don't think I was calling you an idiot, mac -- you're not, and I wasn't. It's the climate change deniers, the anti-science, anti-intellectuals who are idiots.

As for your other point -- I see what you're saying, but in my opinion it's not the same thing. There is no doubt for thinking people about the human effect on and responsibility for deleterious climate change, but there is much doubt among thinking people regarding the possibility of an afterlife (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that there's insufficient proof of it for many people, myself included).

In my opinion, there is not an abundance of evidence proving the existence of an afterlife. I think there is much more proof of climate change and the part humanity plays in causing it.

 

[mac]

Lol. I hope you don't think I was calling you an idiot, mac -- you're not, and I wasn't. It's the climate change deniers, the anti-science, anti-intellectuals who are idiots.

As for your other point -- I see what you're saying, but in my opinion it's not the same thing. There is no doubt for thinking people about the human effect on and responsibility for deleterious climate change, but there is much doubt among thinking people regarding the possibility of an afterlife (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that there's insufficient proof of it for many people, myself included).

In my opinion, there is not an abundance of evidence proving the existence of an afterlife. I think there is much more proof of climate change and the part humanity plays in causing it.

Oh I was only teasing, bb, and maybe I'm a little less harsh towards "the idiots". And - of course - you're half-empty concerning survival et al whereas I guess my cup floweth over.

I don't doubt we're impacting our climate and that we need to change our activities - and soon. How much we're impacting it is perhaps academic but the ways it's happening aren't and the current generation faces changes us oldies haven't had to face - I mean me and my age-group when I say "us oldies". I don't envy the generation our daughter is part of.

 

[mac]

As for your other point -- I see what you're saying, but in my opinion it's not the same thing. There is no doubt for thinking people about the human effect on and responsibility for deleterious climate change, but there is much doubt among thinking people regarding the possibility of an afterlife (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that there's insufficient proof of it for many people, myself included).

For you what you say about climate is balanced and reasonable but the 'anti climate-changers' would likely see it differently and feel as passionately about the way they see matters. Balanced and reasonable is how I feel I am concerning survival and although there's no scientific proof there is - for me - an abundance of evidence that persuades me.

When others doubt the same evidence or more it only means for them the time isn't right. Sorry that's a cliche but I've lived in both states - not knowing and knowing. Once you're persuaded, once you know, there's no going back but until then there's no going forward.

 

[dream jo]

yep justt hop 2 dayss kids respctt plantt betr thn we did wen we wear kids

 

[mac]

This morning I listened to a BBC Radio 4 interview about the Thwaites glacier. The BBC website ('Doomsday Glacier' vulnerability seen in new maps) posted today what follows:

"Scientists may just have identified Thwaites Glacier's Achilles heel.

This Antarctic colossus is melting at a rapid rate, dumping billions of tonnes of ice in the ocean every year and pushing up global sea-levels.

Now, a UK-US team has surveyed the deep seafloor channels in front of the glacier that almost certainly provide the access for warm water to infiltrate and attack Thwaites' underside.

It's information that will be used to try to predict the ice stream's future.

"These channels had not been mapped before in this kind of detail, and what we've discovered is that they're actually much bigger than anyone thought - up to 600m deep. Think of six football pitches back to back," said Dr Kelly Hogan from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

"And because they are so deep, and so wide - this allows a lot more water to get at, and melt, Thwaites' floating front as well as its ice that rests on the seabed," she told BBC News."

I'll probably be dead long before the biggest impacts from this melting glacier but it does make you wonder what smaller - but massively important - impacts such melting may have in the shorter term. Anything affecting global ocean currents has the potential to cause havoc - have I overstated the situation?

 

[mac]

There's a major push to rid this world of the internal combustion engine's polluting ways.

It's not that many years ago that UK motorists were being encouraged to buy diesel powered cars to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere, CO2 being a major 'greenhouse gas'.

Tragically it wasn't appreciated how the success of that push would lead to massively increased amounts of NOx - various oxides of nitrogen - entering the atmosphere, these gases being severe breathing irritants. Additionally diesel engines produce large amounts of tiny soot particles which penetrate deep into lungs and remain there. Children are at the greatest risk. The pollution levels in cities and major towns spiked and remain at dangerous levels and councils are taking local action in an attempt to protect their residents living in the most polluted streets.

To combat those problems, along with all the others transport brings, vehicle manufacturers are spending huge amounts developing electrically-powered vehicles. It leaves me wondering what negative outcomes of this next big push will be? How green are the ore extraction techniques used in the production of the minerals needed to make the millions/billions of batteries needed both for vehicles but also for electrical power storage of electricity produced from green power sources.

The generators and electrical grids of most developed countries may be unable to provide for the new loading they'll face. Vehicle charging points will need to appear on gas station lots and likely elsewhere too to meet demand. Who's gonna pay for the expensive new infrastructure? That question and hundreds more will need to be resolved in short order if the vehicle engines we use presently are to be phased out before the middle of this century.