Before the flood.

[Jubee]

Say what you will, or not, it's still interesting to watch.
What hit me was 24:11 "the hockey stick" spike in the graph and that this guy was getting death threats.
WTF? Death threats to a scientist? Really? Ironically, he must have been quite threatening enough for someone to threaten his life.

 

[basketcase]

I found this NG production on the topic quite good as well.

Bill Nye is more than just a bit hokey but the topic is quite a good overview. Arnie is featured in it as well.

https://youtu.be/29Xv_npmS6E

 

[onthebottom]

Explained to me why National Geo couldn't find an actual scientist and had to go with an actor with a GED?

I'm sorry but the endless smokestack and iceberg melting montages does little to hit the real issue and passes for visual propaganda.

Chasing Ice was a much better version of this theme, an actually photographer gathering data on climate change over time.

We need to move beyond admiring the problem to actual solutions - these normally are someone else sacrifices while Leo lives in a big house a and flys on private jets

 

[Dougal Short]

You know the reality is that no matter what we humans do to "solve" this problem of climate change, it won't ever actually work. At best, it might slow down the rate at which climate change is occurring. The fundamental problem is that there's just too many people, consuming too much stuff, on this little blue and green ball. As "Asia" develops and really ramps up consumption of well, everything, things are really going to get interesting.

I work in the Ocean several months each year. I've been doing this for decades, and the changes I have seen are really significant, although I will confess that there signs of hope here and there. I just returned from a two week stint in the waters between Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. This are has traditionally been heavily fished but about 4 years ago, certain areas were declared off limits to commercial fishing. We dove there for almost two weeks and I can tell you that the marine life was incredible. If we grew the balls world wide to shut large tracts of ocean to human use, it would go a long way. The Ocean is our major defense against climate change. A healthy ocean not only absorbs massive amounts of CO2, but it also produces most of our oxygen.

But really, we need a good old plague to kill maybe 3 billion people (Although the methane produced by the decaying flesh would pose an atmospheric problem that would be hard to overcome.

When I was on this project in BC, we had two scientists there from the US... One worked for NOAA and the other was at NASA. Both of them spoke dispassionately about the demise of the human race. There was no "ifs"... only "whens". Perhaps 300 years, but if we get busy, maybe 6-700. Not 1000 though. We will all die, unpleasantly. Our corpses will decay and become food for animals, who will flourish as a result... lots of food, loss of a major predator. Once we're gone, Mama Earth will heal and be all better in a few hundred years, according to them. It will once again be a lovely spot, teaming with life. We just won't be part of it. We may be living on Mars.

What a shame.

 

[fuji]

If we manage to kick off runaway global warming where a strong enough feedback loop takes effect we eventually evaporate away the oceans and the water dissipates into space. Temperatures hit 250C and all life dies. Even bacteria.

There are some calculations that suggest we don't actually have enough fossil fuels available to us to manage that, meaning even if we burned everything we can get our hands on we wouldn't have enough to trigger an ocean boiling runaway like happened on Venus. But you never know, wye pretty ingenious at coming up with new sources of fossil fuels.

 

[barnacler]

You seem to be assuming that the planet is delicate: I think otherwise, it is robust, and life is too.

It has been hotter, it has been colder. No 'runaway' activities have occurred.

Hotter is more conducive to life.