I have been looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions. The usual solar panel/wind turbine etc options all come easily to hand... just need to be not renting. poo
( Read more... )
The data itself is not really available to the public; you have to subscribe to academic journals to get at it and I have access from the university. However, you can find data and good explanations of it at the following sites:
http://climateprogress.org (an excellent blog on the subject of global warming and climate change in general by someone who knows what's up) and
http://350.org (this site is new and I haven't read through much of it, but it probably contains what you want to know).
You should be scared. I've been following climatology news for several months and all I have to show for it is depression. To sum it up:
1. Global warming is real. 2. GW is caused by human industrial civilisation. 3. The effect of carbon pollution on the climate lags the actual pollution by a couple of decades, meaning if we cut our emissions to zero today, we would not see the effect on the climate for decades. We're locked in to our current self-destructive course. 4. There is no solution from 'new technology'. Even if some glorious breakthrough were discovered, it would still have to be prototyped, tested for side-effects, and then deployed on a scale larger than anything else humanity has attempted. Even if we had enough rich people willing to make it happen, we don't have the time. 4. The current worldwide food and water shortages will expand to include people like us in urban sectors of rich countries within those couple of decades. 5. This is all happening at the same time as Peak Oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil, http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/), which will see all of the industrialised world's transport and electricity based infrastructure grind to a halt. Petrol costs as much as it does now becuase of Peak Oil, and the price will slowly climb to $4-5/L over the next few years, then it will suddenly jump to up around $10/L, then domestic supply will simply stop. On the plus side, this will be good for the environment, but not good enough to stop climate change. 6. When everyone in the world simultaneously runs out of water, food, petrol and electricity, our civilisation will collapse into war, leaving at most one billion people to pick over the scraps our environment is still capable of giving us.
The summarised summary: we're completely screwed and it's far too lat e to do anything about it.
http://climateprogress.org (an excellent blog on the subject of global warming and climate change in general by someone who knows what's up) and
http://350.org (this site is new and I haven't read through much of it, but it probably contains what you want to know).
You should be scared. I've been following climatology news for several months and all I have to show for it is depression. To sum it up:
1. Global warming is real.
2. GW is caused by human industrial civilisation.
3. The effect of carbon pollution on the climate lags the actual pollution by a couple of decades, meaning if we cut our emissions to zero today, we would not see the effect on the climate for decades. We're locked in to our current self-destructive course.
4. There is no solution from 'new technology'. Even if some glorious breakthrough were discovered, it would still have to be prototyped, tested for side-effects, and then deployed on a scale larger than anything else humanity has attempted. Even if we had enough rich people willing to make it happen, we don't have the time.
4. The current worldwide food and water shortages will expand to include people like us in urban sectors of rich countries within those couple of decades.
5. This is all happening at the same time as Peak Oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil, http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/), which will see all of the industrialised world's transport and electricity based infrastructure grind to a halt. Petrol costs as much as it does now becuase of Peak Oil, and the price will slowly climb to $4-5/L over the next few years, then it will suddenly jump to up around $10/L, then domestic supply will simply stop. On the plus side, this will be good for the environment, but not good enough to stop climate change.
6. When everyone in the world simultaneously runs out of water, food, petrol and electricity, our civilisation will collapse into war, leaving at most one billion people to pick over the scraps our environment is still capable of giving us.
The summarised summary: we're completely screwed and it's far too lat e to do anything about it.
I'll stop myself here.
Reply
Leave a comment