<we could abandon all the major cities: London, LA, New York and Tokyo. It just seems simpler to drive more efficient vehicles> Well, I recommend moving to higher ground because of tsunamis from comets too. Just gradually move up as buildings deteriorate. All on the free market of course. Also, more efficient vehicles is only a bit of the story and a negligible one at that.
The central point I'm making is that the 800bn tons of fossil fuels burned each year sounds a lot, but is tiny compared with the C02 in the air and jokingly small compared with the ocean and plant absorptions. I assumed there must be a problem [because of all the noise] until I actually went to the trouble of adding up the tons of CO2 coming from our fossil fuels compared with the CO2 already in the air.
The natural variations are enormous too. So the increase is not of our doing at all. I suppose I should get my calculator out again and check my figures. It was a year ago. But maybe somebody else would like to so that I can be proved wrong. It's more fun to prove somebody else wrong instead of oneself, though more profitable to prove yourself wrong so you don't make silly mistakes, like selling instead of buying!
I doubt that our CO2 will cause an iceage. I know either way, CO2 is now bad, that way the escape route for the evil polluters is closed off - they argue that CO2 saves us from the ice age. Now CO2 is alleged to cause both heating and freezing! I suppose the theory is like mine - first it gets really hot, kills off all the leaves, so reflection increases and cooling occurs which then leads to snow cover, which then leads to further reflection, which exacerbates cooling and so on until all that is left are the tropical deserts with little plant cover.
The ice age then goes into hibernation and the world stays cold until the deserts gradually regrow following a change in their climates. Which then leads to a very slow wind back of the ice age over 100,000 years, this process being hugely slower than snow cover extension. It takes a single snowfall to cover grass and trees, but years for a tree to grow.
So ice-ages happen in a super short time, causing colossal dislocation and disaster. Warm periods take 100,000 years to wind back a full fledged ice age.
I doubt that too much CO2 is the problem though, causing heating. I suspect the problem is a lack of trees in the tropics due to desert encroachment as the ice age receded, causing reflection increases. I don't believe Egypt was an extremely arid desert region 10,000 years ago. I bet it was a lovely moderate climate suitable for a huge, wealthy empire to develop.
The ice ages cycle up and down, like a CDMA cell 'breathing'. The natural state of affairs being an ice age since the vast sequestration of C over a billion years. We'll never recover even 1% of the total sequestered C which was once in the air and life cycles.
With luck, the CO2 release will SLOW the next ice age. But I don't believe it will be enough to have a significant effect.
But the biggest worry is splashdowns or atmospheric impacts which will make a pretty decent wave anyway. Then ice ages. Then warming. [Unless a stock market crash and economic shambles gets us first]. All good fun!
High and Dry,
Mqurice
PS: I guess we agree on the central part - neither of us knows just what the outcome of climate change will be over the next 300 years. But it certainly is worth figuring out and sooner rather than later. But lunging in the direction of stopping fossil fuels use might be exactly the wrong strategy and the fact that governments are promoting it is almost a contrarian indicator for me that it is a bad idea. That's a little cynical, but the fact that they promote it is no recommendation at all.
Meanwhile, the risk of tsunamis from comets is sufficient for me to live up a little. Then if there is a wet feet problem, I'm ahead of the game at no cost. No worry if there is an ice age instead as the height won't matter either way. Staying clear of volcanoes is good too [NZ has heaps of them and sooner rather than later Taupo will blow and the government will find out why there was no warning, conduct a big inquiry and make sure it never happens again - the modern cliche after predictable disaster]. |
