biffvernon

Hmmm. Some of us are studying the interconnectedness of a system based on economic growth and fossil fuel burning in a finite world and are concerned about the various symptoms of impending system failure.

CO2 levels have been very high in the past, perhaps because of volcanos as we don't know them these days, and there have been mass extinctions. This time it's our fault and we want to avoid a mass extinction. Hansen has not given in to complete dispair, suggesting we might just get away with it if we build no more coal fired power stations, phase out the existing ones, and turn agriculture into a carbon sequestration industry. We have to start now, not in ten years time. The good news is that there's not such a great deal of conventional oil left so business as usual is not on the agenda anyway, but we must not try to exploit the unconventional oils - tar sands and oil shales and coal to liquids.

Another great idea (if several billion people cotton on). The website, http://www.350.org/ appears still to be in its, er, developmental phase. Background reading: Jim Hansen et al. April 2008 (3.6mb pdf) and Gavin Schmidt and discussion at RealClimate

When our per capita CO2 emissions are lower than Chin's and when we stop exporting our polluting maunfacuring industries but still enjoy the producs, then we might have a leg to stand on. In the meantime, it might be better to show leadership by example instead of pointing fingers.

Oh no. Even us pretty average scientists have no difficulty understanding it.

And Gavin Schmidt has kicked off the discussion at RealClimate

Jim Hansen et al. New paper, summary: The next 35 pages: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf (3.6mb pdf)

Yes, that has to be one of the great curiosities of the day, an area needy of research psychology.

Average temperature of what? The Moon's atmosphere?

Thank you, Roo. I was, of course, referring to Mr Sleet's chart not, Essan's.

The chart needs a label at the Permo-Triassic boundary: "95% of fossil forming life went extinct here. You have been warned!"

It sounds like a crazy idea, but only to those who don't understand the science or do not have faith in those who do. There are plenty of much more crazy ideas that you probably don't understand such as the quantum mechanics that allows your mobile phone to work.

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008...carbonemissions Hansen's paper will be published at Science magazine tomorrow, I am told. (Of course the regular flat-earthers round here will assure us that Jim Hansen is a looney crackpot and that their universe is cooling nicely.)

I'm no China expert but I think that maybe somewhat disingenuous. There does seem to be a great deal of environmental concern within the upper echelons of the Chinese government. They don't have an easy job.

Good gracious! I struggled to find a paragraph in that document that wasn't complete cobblers. How did he do it? The same way the people who write about the Earth being 6000 years old or how they were abducted by aliens, I suppose. Into the bin with it.

I'm not sure there is any close connection between whether a country is a democracy and it's effect on climate. Compare democratic USA with monarchist Bhutan. If we were all like the Bhutanese there would be no AGW.

There's a danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. We burn oil and coal and increase CO2 in the air. The planet warms up. We're all off to Hell in a handcart. It's that simple. The answer has to be to stop burning fossil fuels and start sequestering the CO2 that we've already put into the air. It will be difficult and cause much gnashing of teeth but the alternative is worse. Business as usual is not an option for our grandchildren. To follow the car and cliff analogy, that's all you need to know - like what the gas and brake pedals do. What goes on inside the fuel management system or the differential is not required knowledge for most motorists, fascinating though it may be.

Occam's Razor requires we assume the simple outcome. Splat.

Right, so the windsreen is too dirty to see where you're going. And you suggest that foot on the gas is a better policy than foot on the brake. Hmmm. Remind me not to accept a lift.

Eh? If continuing to move forwards involve falling off a cliff I'd guess it might be quite important to stop going in that direction.

Amazing! You can't possibly be denying that radioactive decay is what keeps the Earth's interior hot. There's absolutley nothing speculative about that at all, at all.

For sure, there is plenty yet to learn. Like we're in a car, we can see it is hurtling towards a cliff edge. We've worked out that pushing the gas pedel speeds it up and pushing the brake slows it down. But we're not too sure about what goes on in the engine. What do we do? Wait until we have a full understanding of motor engineering before risking touching that brake pedal? Yes let's bar Channel 4 after that silly swindle programme last year

Yes there is some uranium and yes it does keep the earth hot and the iron of the core molten. There's enough to keep it that way for more millions of years than we need worry about. Forget about the plutonium and forget any notion that the heating is going to slow down. (In fact deep rock geothermal energy may well prove to be one of our major energy sources in the future.) Reversals of the magnetic poles happens from time to time and such events may play havoc with the magnetosphere but we're not likely to live long enough to see one of them either.

Yes, but there are very large gaps in our knowledge of ocean currents beyond the surface waters. Deep ocean circulation might justifiably be called a science in its infancy.

Harder to measure, of course, but what really matters is not the temperature of the atmosphere, but the heat of the whole atmosphere and ocean system. If overturning ocean currents take heat below the reach of sea surface temperature measuring devices, some folk may be lured into a false sense of security. Since we know that the increased level of CO2 is trapping more heat, if we our thermometers do not rise we should be worried. What goes down will come up again.