Impact of climate change may be underestimated - Article worth reading

by cantleave 90 Replies latest social current

• 

  talesin

  tt2c, you said:

  The statement "up to 50% of the human population was wiped out by plague over several centuries" doesn't add up. The black plague mostly was confined to Europe which never has held the majority of earths population. Sorry but that argument just doesn't hold water.

  (note: a quick click on Wiki can be informative, but doesn't always have the complete story )

  Actually, the black plague was not 'mostly confined to Europe'. Let's follow the trail/timeline, and examine, as you say, real data.

  In the 1200's, famine cut China's population in half, reducing the population from approx. 120 million to 60 million. This was followed by a black plague epidemic, which killed off another 25 million Chinese and Asians by the middle of the 1300's, at which time it was then spread to Europe.

  By 1400, 30-60% of Europe's population had been wiped out.

  It appears that the statement "up to 50% of the human population was wiped out by plague over several centuries" is, indeed, accurate.

  ref. url: http://www.enotes.com/topic/Black_Death

  In October 2010, medical geneticists confirmed that the plague originated in China. [2] The wide presence in China of its natural hosts, rodent species such as marmots and voles, was likely the main factor behind its origin rather than the country's human population size. [2] (In China, the 13th century Mongol conquest disrupted farming and trading, and led to widespread famine. The population dropped from approximately 120 to 60 million. [15] ) The 14th-century plague killed an estimated 25 million Chinese and other Asians during the 15 years before it entered Constantinople in 1347. [16]

  Plague was reportedly first introduced to Europe at the trading city of Caffa in the Crimea in 1347. After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants

  The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% – 60% of Europe's population, [1] reducing the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400.

  t
• 

  mP

  @moshe

  The biggest environmental problem facing the world is overpopulation which causes pollution etc of which burning gas is but one.
• 

  mP

  @tales

  There were many black death plagues, each killed vast numbers, perhaps over a period of a few hundred years the accumulated deaths were half of Europe. Asia and everywhere else has been having famines since the beginning of time, the Bible itself has many famine stories. We cannot just assume that the famines hyou mentionare a rare event.

  if we examine the graphs i presented you will see the period you mention the temps dropped and they have rebounded over the past few hundred years the same amount. Are we to believe the changing factor for the drop was half of the world or europe disappearing and that was reversed in an equal amount by a big jump in population including the industrial rev ? The 19th centure had a population of probably 10x more than the 1300s, sholdnt the graph increase by 10x the rate ? I am using a conservative figure the actual jump in population as a factor is actually more.

  

  1000310175079110650216316221800978107635203247218501,2621118092763826219001,6501339474087482619502,5192211,39854716717212.819552,7562471,54257519118714.319602,9822771,67460120920415.919653,3353141,89963425021917.619703,6923572,14365628523219.419754,0684082,39767532224321.519804,4354702,63269236125622.819854,8315422,88770640126924.719905,2636223,16872144128326.719955,6747073,43072748129928.920006,0707963,68072852031631.020056,4548883,91772555833232.920106,9721,0224,25273258035135.6[2]YearWorldAfricaAsiaEuropeLatin AmericaNorthern AmericaOceaniaNotes

  The facts are temperature growth is not matching the explosive human growth in the past 100 years.
• 

  tootired2care

  @talesin:

  If you look at total population it gets more interesting. The problem is that what you've stated is ignoring 52% percent of the rest of the earths population at the time (a big number to ignore!). You have to account for densly populated areas like India, other parts of asia, Africa etc. This source breaks it down pretty nicely by area http://worldhistorysite.com/population.html (ignore their total numbers I think they are incorrect, but focus on percentage by area to get a rough idea of percentages by area towards bottom of page).

  What total world population estimates are you using to back the 50% total decline up with? It appears that the total population of earth dropped from somewhere between 13-14% using a comparison of Biraben's population estimates from the periods between 1300-1400 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population_estimates. It doesn't stand to reason that even a 15% (rounded up) decline in total population would have much effect on the planets climate. The percentage is even less if you go to 1500. So total decline of 50% is indeed not accurate according to total population estmates of earth between those timeframes.

  Now I'm all for a cleaner environment, I just don't want hypocritical liberal gubermint bureaucrat's to use "climate change", to confiscate everyones wealth and freedom to enrich themselves and make us all slaves to their USSR style politics. If the goverment and oil companies would stop stiffling inovation, we might be able to get to a better place. Unfortunately this will never happen until after the people clean out the cesspool of corruption and special interest in Washington D.C. and get back to a goverment that is not so intrusive in every detail of our lives see Atlas Shrugged.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  MP: The projects that you mention the gov spending money are token. Government is often involved in many token nonsense projects to justify some operation, but in the end its always about money, case in point Speed Cameras.

  Speed cameras are irrelevant to climate change debate and the example is nothing more than a straw man. I've no doubt that many politicians in our goverment are greedy, corrupt, and stupid but let's please focus on the point of debate. I gave an example that refutes your [rather fallacious] claim "If there really was a problem then it stands to reason the gov should spend some of the $ on fixing the pollution problems, but they dont change a single thing."

  I gave you a "single thing" - a specific situation in which I personally saw environmental regulations affecting one of our customers. You dismissed the example as a "token project". I feel like I'm trying to reason with a JW. I give you evidence, you dismiss it. Where exactly is the line between token projects and legit projects? Do you wave all of it off in ignorance or do you investigate? What environmental regulations would meet your qualifications? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/us/new-rules-will-limit-greenhouse-gas-emissions.html

  Either way, your initial line of reasoning was no less fallacious: "If there really was a problem then it stands to reason the gov should spend some of the $ on fixing the pollution problems, but they dont change a single thing."
  
  So your gauge of whether or not mankind faces a real problem is based on whether scientifically-illiterate politicians are making it a priority or not?
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  MP: Strange wiki says 30B and your scientist says 35B tonnes of CO..... your quotes are off by almost 15% from my source in wiki.

  "My scientist" says... haha... The information I shared: Friedlingstein et al. projected that humans would be responsible for producing 35B tonnes of CO2 (FTR, CO is carbon monoxide) in 2010. The actual estimate of C02 produced in 2010, according to the same Wiki entry, is shown to be 33.5B tonnes worldwide. [EDIT: I've pasted a screenshot a couple of posts below.]

  Of course, you showed us the 2008 statistics instead of 2010 (also shown in that Wiki entry), no doubt for the lower amounts. I'd say a projection of 35 with a final estimate coming in at 33.5 is pretty damn good but perhaps you can get closer when you make next year's projections for CO2 output.

  ...while he says 130M to 440M tonnes from volcanos. Theres quite a difference between 0.13 to 0.44 by a factor of 3.5...

  So now you're complaining about the accuracy of the estimated range of emissions for something as varying as volcanoes? Is there a point to that comment or are you just saying you're better at math than these scientists?

  "The published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial (on land) and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 0.13 gigaton to 0.44 gigaton per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998). The preferred global estimates of the authors of these studies range from about 0.15 to 0.26 gigaton per year."
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  MP: I cant help but wonder if yor business interests have led you to believe the hype for personal benefit. Do yo believe because its good business?

  Let me clarify my understanding: I accept the scientific consensus that human actions have caused observable changes to the global climate and that it would be best to educate ourselves, readjust our thinking NOW, as a nation, and take steps to move to cleaner energy sources. I also think we should strive to waste less and recycle more.

  Personally, I'd like for my great-grandkids not to suffer for our willful ignorance.
  
  As for business interests go, the company I work for lost the executive who brought in those PAC injection projects. Regardless, that was a very tiny sliver of the pie. Our company generates far more revenue installing control systems that are indifferent to the clean energy initiative in coal-fired power plants and in the pulp/paper industry. So if you're looking at what I stand to lose financially, the lion's share of our work means I should be very much biased AGAINST any environmental law that could hurt our customer base. (In fact, almost all of my coworkers lean far right and consider all talk of environmental consciousness to be liberal agenda. These people sport bumperstickers that say, "Against logging? Try using plastic toilet paper."

  MP: You have completely ignored the fact that volcanos spew out other gases that affect the environment.

  Not ignored, I've just focused on the gas that is most relevant to this discussion - CO2. But if it makes you feel better, I've also "completely ignored" the vast quantities of other gases produced by humans that affect the environment as well. I isolated CO2 as an example, since it typically comprises more of the volcanic gases than all the others. H2O consistently makes up more than 60% of volcanic gas emissions. Following that, you have CO2, which typically makes up 10-40%. Then you have sulfur. Finally a host of trace gases that account for the rest. (H. Sigurdsson et al., 2000, Encyclopedia of Volcanoes)

  MP: Volcanos spew out vast amounts of sulfur etc, to think that only carbon affects the weather and environment is shallow.

  Shallow... nice. First of all, to address the CO2 specifically is relevant to the topic at hand, which is anthropogenic global warming. C02 is a greenhouse gas. Sulfur is not. So CO2 typically comprises more of the volcanic gases than all the other gases combined, not counting water vapor. We are addressing the potentially long-term effects that man's actions are having on the planet. The greenhouse effect is tied to CO2 not sulfur.

  MP: Take a look at this year and the previous, Europe had record winters, and we in the southern hemisphere didnt have a summer at all. There were almost no days in the mid 30's C, when in past years we would always have 30s in January. Does that really sound like global warming ?

  I'm curious, do you accept evolution as a well-supported scientific theory? If so, how did you ever get past the "well where are all the crocoducks" argument?
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  (in thousands of CO 2 metric tonnes)

  
• 

  mP

  SWEET

  Shallow... nice. First of all, to address the CO2 specifically is relevant to the topic at hand, which is anthropogenic global warming. C02 is a greenhouse gas. Sulfur is not. So CO2 typically comprises more of the volcanic gases than all the other gases combined, not counting water vapor. We are addressing the potentially long-term effects that man's actions are having on the planet. The greenhouse effect is tied to CO2 not sulfur.

  MP

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus

  Venus is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid , preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light . Venus has the densest atmosphere of all the terrestrial planets in the Solar System , consisting mostly of carbon dioxide

  The CO 2 -rich atmosphere, along with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide , generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F) . [38] This makes the Venusian surface hotter than Mercury 's which has a minimum surface temperature of −220 °C and maximum surface temperature of 420 °C, [39] even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance . The surface of Venus is often said to resemble traditional accounts of Hell . [40]

  Im not denying CO2 isnt a greenhouse gas, but to say it is the only important factor is overly simplistic. Venus has lots of CO2, but sulfur and its compounds are very much part of the cycle that creates the greenhouse effect there.

  I mentioned the reduced summers and harsh winters of Europe and NA, these facts seem to contradict the green house effect. Are we to believe the earth is heating up and that causes winters to be colder, does that make sense ?

  At no stage have you attempted to show that my assertions that the earth was warming up before the Industrial revolution to be wrong, the graphs are tehre in b&w.

  Im not sure why you posted the stats about CO2 emissions, nor does your witty remark about Santa, ducks and Barcelona and the champions league really add to your overall argument.
• 

  mP

  @Sweet

  Governments are not exactly bastians of honesty, they have been known to lie on many occassions, particularly with regards to money. There are many programs that ultimately are all about grabbing money, and climate change is the new invention. In the past governments would scare the locals into complying with taxes by force, today they have invented a new bogey man, and hes not called Jehovah but is called Climate Change.

  The governments themselves dont believe the hype, they receive a lot more money than they spend. Some countries are introducing or have already implemented taxes that will amount to very large numbers. At the same time they make no attempt to actually change or rectify the problem.

  For example why doesnt the US gov simply ban 4wd, pickup trucks and other large vehicles. Most poeple simple dont need them and they extra burn petrol unncessarily. Europe and other parts of thee world get by just fine with small hatch back style vehicles and are actually sserious about public transport.

  If there really was a problem, then gov would really get serious about the problem, so far they have done practically nothing.

  We have already established that your primary support for this sort of policy is particularly biased because you have a business interest. If you have anything new to add besides repeating yourself or introducing sly insults then reply.