Compiled by S. C. Raine (mungascr) from media sources listed.

1. Over the past century the Earth has warmed by 0.63 degrees, if
carbon dioxide levels are doubled by the end of this century as
predicted it will bring about 3 degrees of climate change. (Tim
Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

2. 2-3 degrees of climate change would result for Australia in
catastrophic loss of ancient mountain rainforest, complete loss of
the * world’s * coral reefs, complete devastation of Kakadu National
Park, rising sea levels and storm surges. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to
disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

3. To stabilise (not restore – stabilise) the planetary climate CO2
levels need to be cut by 70 % by 2050. The Kyoto protocol only cuts
emissions by 5% if it is implemented successfully. (Tim Flannery `3
degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th & `Climate
of Concern’, Adelaide Review, March 2004.)

4. The 2003 European summer heatwave which killed 19,000 people was
the hottest on the continent in 5 centuries according to researchers.
(Advertiser, 04-March-6th.)

5. The nature of rainfall has changed in Australia since 1975; the
heavy persistent winter rains have become lighter and more variable
and we’ve experienced five droughts and two floods – a statistical
oddity expected only once every 5000 years.
6. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’ in `The Advertiser’, 2005-
May-16th.)

7. The North Polar icecap has lost 40 %of its thickness and is
predicted by the end of this century it will have disappeared
entirely in summer – destroying the Arctic habitat on which polar
bears ,seals , etc ..depend. (Tim Flannery `3 degrees to disaster’
in `The Advertiser’, 2005-May-16th.)

8. A leaked Pentagon report suggests climate change could be sudden
and dramatic with the biosphere lurching from one climatic state to
another in less than a decade with apocalyptic consequences. (Weekend
Aust’n Magazine, P.8, 2004, March 20-21st.)

9. The 1990’s were the warmest decade in the past 2000 years as
evidenced by tree-ring and sediment data analysed by a Swedish
research team. (Advertiser, `05 March 1st.)

10. All 18 Peruvian glaciers have been melting; incl. the Pastouri
glacier covering the most popular skiing peak in the Andes which has
shrunk by 19 m every year since 1980. It now covers 25 % less than a
quarter of a century ago. Peru has lost 20 % of its glaciers in the
past 30 years. This increases the likelihood of severe mudslides in
the short term and drought in the longer term. ( Advertiser, 04-Aug.-
7th.)

11. The Climate Research Group at the University of Illinois has
stated that there is a 45 % chance that the Gulfstream current will
be halted by the end of this century and a 70 % chance of it being
halted by 2200 due to climate change. This would have extremely
harmful effects on the Northern hemispheres climate esp. for Britain,
Europe and North America. (P.10, `Guardian Weekly’, `05-Feb-11th-
17th.)

12. Extra CO2 in the atmosphere is not only raising temperatures but
also making the oceans more acidic : CO2 reacts with water to produce
carbonic acid. This threatens to wipe out entire marine ecosystems.
(P.10, `Guardian Weekly’, `05-Feb-11th-17th.)

13. A 2003 University of Texas study discovered 99 species of
birds, butterflies and Alpine Herbs have shifted 600 m north each
year because of global warming. (P.13, Guardian Weekly, 20-26th
May ‘05.)

14. Fish in the North Sea have migrated to cooler waters as the sea
warms – 21 species have shifted their distribution in line with
rising sea temps and 18 species have moved much further north.
Research conducted by the University of East Anglia & the (UK) Centre
for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture. (P.13, Guardian Weekly, 20-
26th May ‘05.)

15. Greenland’s icesheet is melting faster than predicted as shown
by photographs and measurements of its major glaciers (Recent TV news
report)

***

Draw your own conclusions from the above but remember :

This is just a mere handful of the evidence for radical human-induced
climatic and environmental change for the worse. There’s a coastline full more of such information and research indicating the same grim tidings relating to our planetary environment and what we are doing to it.

Moreover, note that there is also a time lag factor with the climate
change and that not only are the effects and pollutants working in a
cumulative manner they are also interacting with each other with
potentially numerous unforeseen and grim results –things could
snowball very quickly for the worse.

I strongly feel that we do have a very serious problem here which we
are not taking adequate steps to address and that climate change and the
consequences of human environmental abuse pose our very gravest
threat.

I really fear for the future and advocate immediate dramatic action
if we wish to avoid some very calamitous changes which gravely
threaten not just Western society but all Humanity!

a) abnormal

Yes it is. The smoking gun is that the rising temperature trend is occurring at the same time as an unprecedented rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. This makes the current warming trend stand out among similar trends in the past that lack large CO2 rises.

b) caused, or even influenced in a significant way, by human activity

If CO2 concentration rises, the Earth will warm. This is a basic consequence of CO2 infrared absorption properties, and to deny increased CO2 has the capability to warm the planet is to deny well-known and laboratory verified physics.

The obvious following question is what is causing the CO2 rise. There is no simple demonstration that humans are a major cause of that, although it can be shown easily that one source, volcanoes, are not. If volcanoes were the major source, the Mauna Loa CO2 record should spike every time a major eruption (El Chicon, Pinatubo) occurred. The record does not reflect these eruptions at all. Beyond that, the only way to figure out the carbon sources are through difficult carbon-balancing studies. That topic is a little out of my realm, so I will point you to the Real Climate page “How much of the recent CO2 increase is due to human activities?”

c) not going to stop tomorrow

Come on. The climate is hard to move, but it has inertia. Like pushing on a military hovercraft, getting it to move is hard, but once it is going, God help anyone in the way. The oceans are the real kicker here, as they store enormous amounts of energy (relative to land or the atmos), and so once they are perturbed enough to start changing, it would likely take several hundred years for them to return to “normal” if the initial perturbation was immediately removed.

d) going to go on in a runaway burn and destroy the earth

Don’t be silly…

I would like to make an additional comment here: Don’t forget that there are MANY ways to measure climate change. Global mean temperature is just one of them. Relying on global mean temp alone can lead to incorrect conclusions, as I discussed above. Modern GW doesn’t look substantially unusual in the long-term temperature record alone (ignoring that almost all other changes occurred when Earth has much more ice coverage), but it most certainly looks unusual when taking CO2 measurements into account as well. There are many other indices to consider when monitoring climate change, like changes in average diurnal and annual temperature ranges, changes in equator-pole temperature differences, land-ocean temperature differences, precipitation changes, and, of course, the physical effects warming has on other aspects of the planet (e.g. glaciers). Global mean temperature is useful to measure, but it is only one number, and one number can only carry so much information. Be careful drawing conclusions from one number alone.

1) Is the climate changing? Umm yep – bit of a no brainer there to start with.
1a) has it always been changing? Would have to say yes it has.
1b) But I guess the issue is time scales and rates of change and absolute amounts.
1c) Is there such a thing as the global climate? There seems to be too much variation accross the earth to be able to nail a single definition of global climate down.

2) Have humans affected the climate. Can’t beleive that we haven’t, UHI, land use chages, deforestation, agriculture, massed house and road buildings …. (and thats just us in Europe).
2a) But in what way have each of these affected the climate, positive or negative, if these are even sensible terms of reference? Sorry not I’m smart enough to answer that one.

3) Can we do anything about it in a predicatable way? To my mind and knowledge of control theory, not very well, not if we can’t answer Q2.

So i guess all I am doing is repeating the Squids message slightly differently (mine in caps)

“We shouldn’t ONLY be concerned about global warming – we should be concerned about how and why we destroy our environment in general.”

Because i get the feeling that politicians are using Global Warming as an excuse not to do other harder things to help the world. But that is another rant entirely.

“We shouldn’t be concerned about global warming – we should be concerned about how and why we destroy our environment in general.”

Global average temperature is increasing. The debate is over the cause. See my post above.

Unfortuately, 100 years of temperature measurements is hardly proof of anything other than a short-term trend.

That’s the downfall of “global warming”.

It is demonstrable that the world is getting warmer in the short term. It is NOT demonstrable that this is:

a) abnormal
b) caused, or even influenced in a significant way, by human activity
c) not going to stop tomorrow
d) going to go on in a runaway burn and destroy the earth

The planet has been this warm in the past, indeed, I am sure I’ve read that paleoclimatologists (or whatever they are called) have noted that there have been periods when it was WARMER in the past.

This is not to say that we should continue to burn fossil fuels as fast as we can dig them up, but I will suggest that in the next 100 years, wars and pollution related to the use of fossil fuels will kill more people and destroy more environment than all the global warming in that time period, however the warming is caused.