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Politics : The Exxon Free Environmental Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (16653)	10/14/2013 10:55:24 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49101

Seems...There IS.....No Room at ..The Inn The Moose and the Squirrel confront...Former Veep..D. B. Cheney Across the U.S. and Canada, experts have reported that moose populations are dwindling at alarming rates. Minnesota, for example, had "two geographically separate moose populations" as recently as 20 years ago. Since then, one of the groups has gone from 4,000 to fewer than 100. The other population, according to the Times article, has decreased at a rate of 25 percent a year. The article cites similar population declines in Montana, New Hampshire, and Canada. Many believe global warming and its many side effects are responsible. Wrote the New York Times: In New Hampshire, a longer fall with less snow has greatly increased the number of winter ticks, a devastating parasite. “You can get 100,000 ticks on a moose,” said Kristine Rines, a biologist with the state’s Fish and Game Department. The warming climate also requires that moose use more energy to stay cool, which can lead to exhaustion and death, according to the National Wildlife Federation: Heat affects moose directly, as summer heat stress leads to dropping weights, a fall in pregnancy rates, and increased vulnerability to predators and disease. When it gets too warm, moose typically seek shelter rather than foraging for nutritious foods needed to keep them healthy. In some cases, the disappearing moose is a study of cause and effect. Again, via The New York Times: In the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia, a recent study pinned the decline of moose on the widespread killing of forest by an epidemic of pine bark beetles, which seem to thrive in warmer weather. The loss of trees left the moose exposed to human and animal predators. Wildlife officials in Minnesota suspended all moose-hunting licenses in February, according to US

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (16653)	10/15/2013 1:01:25 AM
From: Sam	1 Recommendation Recommended By Ron Respond to of 49101

Funny, some of the comments to that piece say that geological discoveries like this one "refute" climate change and support the deniers. They claim that geologists are simply ignored in the debate. And, as you, Tom, well know, people right here on SI take the same position (if you can believe it!). Yet, the Geological Society of America itself takes this position on CC: The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2011), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse - gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. geosociety.org More at the link. More on their position and the rationale behind it here: Geological Society discuss climate change evidence from the geological record Posted on 3 November 2010 by John Cook The Geological Society has prepared a position statement on climate change, focusing specifically on the geological evidence (here's a pdf version of the statement). The geological record contains abundant evidence on the ways Earth’s climate has changed in the past and give us vital clues on how it may change in the future. Their statement is based on geological evidence, not on recent temperature or satellite data or climate model projections. The statement is a must-read, featuring a wealth of information and many useful peer-reviewed references (my to-do list has just gotten longer). I've summarised some of their key points below: The Earth’s temperature changes naturally over time scales ranging from decades, to hundreds of thousands, to millions of years. In some cases these changes are gradual and in others abrupt. Evidence for climate change is preserved in a wide range of geological settings, including marine and lake sediments, ice sheets, fossil corals, stalagmites and fossil tree rings. Cores drilled through the ice sheets yield a record of polar temperatures and atmospheric composition ranging back to 120,000 years in Greenland and 800,000 years in Antarctica. Oceanic sediments preserve a record reaching back tens of millions of years, and older sedimentary rocks extend the record to hundreds of millions of years. Evidence from the geological record is consistent with the physics that shows that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere warms the world and may lead to higher sea levels, greatly changed patterns of rainfall, increased acidity of the oceans and decreased oxygen levels in seawater. Life on Earth has survived large climate changes in the past, but extinctions and major redistribution of species have been associated with many of them. When the human population was small and nomadic, a rise in sea level of a few metres would have had very little effect. With the current and growing global population, much of which is concentrated in coastal cities, such a rise in sea level would have a drastic effect on our complex society, especially if the climate were to change as suddenly as it has at times in the past. Sudden climate change has occurred before. About 55 million years ago, at the end of the Paleocene, there was a sudden warming event in which temperatures rose by about 6ºC globally and by 10-20ºC at the poles. This warming event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM, was accompanied by a major release of 1500 to 2000 billion tonnes or more of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. This injection of carbon may have come mainly from the breakdown of methane hydrates beneath the deep sea floor, perhaps triggered by volcanic activity superimposed on an underlying gradual global warming trend that peaked some 50 million years ago in the early Eocene. CO2 levels were already high at the time, but the additional CO2 injected into the atmosphere and ocean made the ocean even warmer, less well oxygenated and more acidic, and was accompanied by the extinction of many species on the deep sea floor. It took the Earth’s climate around 100,000 years or more to recover, showing that a CO2 release of such magnitude may affect the Earth’s climate for that length of time. When was CO2 last at today’s level, and what was the world like then? The most recent estimates suggest that between 5.2 and 2.6 million years ago, the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached between 330 and 400 ppm. During those periods, global temperatures were 2 to 3°C higher than now, and sea levels were higher than now by 10 to 25 metres, implying that global ice volume was much less than today. The Arctic Ocean may have been seasonally free of sea-ice. Human activities have emitted over 500 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere since around 1750. In the coming centuries, continued emissions of carbon could increase the total to 1500 to 2000 billion tonnes - close to the amounts added during the 55 million year warming event. The geological evidence from the 55 million year event and from earlier warming episodes suggests that such an addition is likely to raise average global temperatures by at least 5 to 6ºC, and possibly more. Recovery of the Earth’s climate in the absence of any mitigation measures could take 100,000 years or more. In the light of the geological evidence presented here it is reasonable to conclude that emitting further large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere over time is likely to be unwise, uncomfortable though that fact may be. I recommend everyone read the full position statement. skepticalscience.com

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (16653)	10/15/2013 9:21:18 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49101

Arctic used to have tropical forests. It means nothing to the fact of global warming. The scientists have taken all of that into account. IN fact they get exasperated when the subject is brought up-lol. They ask: "don't people know we know about that stuff and taken it into account.

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (16653)	10/16/2013 10:41:09 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49101

re..evidence Extreme Weather events... occurring in times past are not new the Collapse of the Classic Mayans..... the Abandonment by The Pueblo Peoples ....in the SW of the Americas The Short Lived stay on Greenland by the Vikings and many more..... speak to us..of Unusual events on the Planet..(its getting Biblical Out there..) what Is new.. is our Population..7+ Billion Strong and counting... who expect/hope...for more easy to be with ....weather Almost... All of our Top Researchers... remind us...Weather..is not Climate and to be very Careful... with Green House Gas ..emissions Past events..like youve posted...have their source of...... .First Movers... veiled in time As my long dead dad used to say to me "If most of your friends..jump off a cliff... are you sure..you want to Do That too...???" Namaste Tim