Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[Stavros]

An article in today's Guardian claims that the Trump Presidency will gradually devolve the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to States until the EPA itself is wound up. What else will be wound up is a matter of debate and even though Myron Ebell, who led the EPA transition team- has said EPA research papers would not be dumped, he doesn't believe in the science of climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...tection-agency

When the UK's Chief Scientist, Prof. David King said in 2004 climate change was a greater challenge than terrorism, Ebell responded by attempting to ridicule King as “an alarmist with ridiculous views who knows nothing about climate change”, a flippant dismissal of a distinguished academic who in reality knows more about climate change than Ebell. Indeed, King has now modified his comment on climate change:
"Climate change is not, in the Foreign Secretary's words, the biggest challenge of our time, it's the biggest challenge of all time."

How the US will meet this challenge is not clear, but one has the sinking feeling that science no longer matters. Even Ebell on tv last week could not hide his real concern, with the politics.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/blog...ge-of-all-time

[trish]

As early as 2014 the U.S. military recognized our changing climate as a threat to national security. The armed forces are seeking to adapt their coastal installations against the threat of ocean rise, they are developing alternate power sources and integrating climate change, water shortages, climate related rescue operations etc. into their strategic thinking.

Wind is the fastest growing source of power in the U.S. Seven major oil companies, including BP and Royal Dutch Shell, are investing in renewables and encouraging others to fund steps to reduce the production and release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Politically speaking, science was never much of a match against faith (religious or ideological) and faith was never much of a match against money. But this time, if we’re lucky, the money may be looking far enough ahead into the future to see that if it stays the current course, its coffers may get flooded with briny water rather than coin.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. We have Trump, Pence and Bannon in the White House with a cabinet that's filling up with retrogrades. We still have Inhofe on the Senate energy committee chaired by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Murkowski seems to rely on her own limited experiences rather than any scientific reading when she admits that Alaska is experiencing warmer temperatures and thinner ice and adds that those issues must be addressed. But she’s not sure humans can be blamed; she suggests volcanoes! The U.S. Geological Survey calculate the world’s volcanoes spew 200 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year, whereas all the world’s industries and automobiles cough 24 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually- the anthropogenic emission is 120 fold more. Nevertheless Inhofe and Murkowsky are stuck, trying to analyze the situation with anecdotes from their own experiences - melting snowballs in the Senate chambers and the volcano Lisa can see at Katmai National Park.

Hope you guys can carry on without us for a few years. We’re going to be away for a little while. We’re taking a Sentimental Journey - back to a time when we were really ‘great’.

[Stavros]

It does look as if the Trump Presidency regards environmental regulations as bad for business, as its repeal of the 'Stream Protection Rule' suggests. This repeal will give back powers to coal companies to blow the tops of mountains and dump the debris in streams and rivers. In the Appalachians thousands of natural water courses have been buried under rubble, but it does not mean this repeal will lead to a new golden age for coal, jobs and prosperity in some of the poorest communities in the USA.
But it does cement the power coal companies have at the expense of the people and the environment. A while ago I saw a report from West Virginia that asked why so many had voted for Trump, and at face value it was all about jobs. But an alternative voice pointed out that coal rules to the extent that workers receive low wages for long hours, pay rent to property owned by the company, shop in stores owned by the company, get their pension from the company, and when they die are buried in coffins purchased from the company. The land they live on is polluted, the water makes them sick, but they can do nothing about it.

One wonders why the US is even mining coal which is a dirty, inefficient and expensive product to extract, when there are trillions of cubic feet of low-to-neutral carbon reserves of gas to use instead. This repeal has as much to do with a philosophical loathing of 'the environment' as it is an endorsement of commercial firms trashing the natural world for financial gain.
http://www.vox.com/2017/2/2/14488448...rotection-rule

[Nikka]

it´s snowing

[filghy2]

Yeh right. We've had the highest global average temperature on record three years running, but that that can't be right because somewhere at some point in time it's snowing. https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ry-three-years

[nitron]

The coral reef off Australia is degrading now,
byproduct of...
GWarming.,
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that our spices needs . Were pretty good at reacting to sudden emergencies. Who knows. Already the oceans have micro plastics, heavy industrial run off ...etc,
the land is not in better shape, and this just regular old pollution , then this Warming kicks in ,
I hope were not too cognitively challenged by that older type of pollution.
As long as it's not too sudden, say catastrophic ,like methane gas trapped under per-ma frost and sedimentary underwater is massively released,say over a few years.
I hate to say it, but the pessimist in me thinks this is exactly how this thing is going to roll.

[hippifried]

it´s snowing

Ya skipped a decade somewhere along the line, kiddo. "Global warming" became "climate change" because the joke got old.

[sukumvit boy]

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming = Paul Hawken

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/draw...clickid=3x4783

[broncofan]

The coral reef off Australia is degrading now,
byproduct of...
GWarming.,
Maybe this is exactly the kind of thing that our spices needs . Were pretty good at reacting to sudden emergencies.

I don't know as much about this subject as many other people but I assume this isn't the type of thing that can be quickly fixed. Our models for predicting weather systems are not perfect, and our ability to predict exactly what sorts of events climate change will lead to not perfect either, but if we are talking about rising sea levels and more extreme weather events, what exactly is the fix for that?

I have not read about this, but couldn't changing weather patterns lead to epidemiological problems? Who knows what sorts of pathogens we might be facing if the landscape is completely changed, assuming we are able to figure out how to live in these conditions. We are already seeing types of bacteria that are resistant to even antibiotics of last resort. Climate change will not increase resistance from antibiotic use, but why wouldn't it increase the chance that there will be new pathogens that neither our current array of antibiotics nor our immune systems can handle? Our immune systems learn to respond to pathogens based both on exposure within a lifetime and natural selection across generations, but the generation times of bacteria are much shorter....if you completely alter the conditions in which we both live, who will undergo faster genomic change? I'm not saying the conditions would necessarily change in ways that make bacteria more pathogenic or more difficult to kill, but couldn't it?

[sukumvit boy]

Yes , lots of epidemiological problems we can hardly begin to imagine . Not only bacteria but nasty viruses like Ebola lay dormant for centuries until encroachment by humans and fast international travel ignite possible catastrophic epidemics.
However , Project Drawdown shows that the solutions to carbon reduction and reversal are doable now.
http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/en...rbines-onshore