Posted by James Hrynyshyn on January 28, 2011 Fast Friday feature (from Utah!):
Climate Science in a Nutshell #9: How Bad Could it Get? from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.
My only comment is to draw your attention to the video’s assumption that the 350 ppm CO2 target is widely accepted as the maximum necessary to avert catastrophic change. It’s certainly spreading, but I suspect there are still many who would argue that the science behind it is less than conclusive, as opposed to 450, say.
Hey everyone. Welcome to the worst blog by the lamest blogger EVAR in the history of teh internets.
wait. what’s that smell? smells like CO2 plant food is up 3 ppm outside. gotta go check and see if the ocean has risen over my back yard.
buh bye.
Hi, Jimbo!
CO2 is plant food, eh?
1. Do you suppose that all species respond equally well?
2. Do you suppose that a plant which is exposed to more CO2 might need more, y’know, *real food? Phosphates, iron, calcium, that sort of thing.
3. How well will your supercharged plants do in three months of drought followed by floods – are they OK with that?
4. Will crops in the near future do as well as, say, the US western forests are now?
5. Will pollinators do as well as the plants they are currently associated with? I guess we could hire a lot of those unemployed folks to pollinate by hand.
Oh, as far as the ocean goes, even if it gets up to 150 feet higher than it is now, as it was the last time CO2 was this high, it won’t get there in my lifetime, and I live 500 feet above sea level anyway. I am a little worried about people whose backyard *is getting flooded. I’m sure I can fit a few Texan families in the garden. And the Mexican climate refugees can move into the living room, but I’ll be danged if I know where I can fit the Costa Ricans.
If you’re European, start making room for your neighbors who live along your coast or to the south.
The video is probably too simplistic to really make a good case. Perhaps it’s intended for young children, but otherwise it really does gloss over too much detail to describe reality.
Indeed, the real “worst case” is much uglier.
Yet the problem remains – the naturally sequestered carbon in this planet’s surface represents a potent resource that humans have grown to depend upon.
As such, the real “worst case” is that carbon emissions will only be slowed a bit, perhaps a moderate amount, but they will continue on for a long time. Whether we take 8 decades or 18 decades, we will dump at least another TT of C into the atmosphere. It’s a doomer scenario, but one can build a strong case for its inevitability.
Does the mocking, bullying troll really think his attitude will change the principles of physics and chemistry and make climate change non-existent?
The video is probably too simplistic to really make a good case. Perhaps it’s intended for young children, but otherwise it really does gloss over too much detail to describe reality.
Wow! Climate science for people in Utah! I’m impressed!
Kidding aside, it will get worse. While we’re choking to death on “clean” coal, enagaging in the usual CIA-sponsored wars-against-sanity in the Middle East and elsewhere, and trying our best to make sure every new middle- and upper-class Chinese gets to pollute their fair share compared to Americans, Mother nature will be coughing, spitting, and heaving all over us.
Welcome to the new world order, where a spade is a spade, but you can’t call it that.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the DRAMA!!!!!!!!!!!
pffft
Nice of the deniers to demonstrate so clearly that they have nothing of value to add.
I mean, really?? I’m a scientist, and just reading that even made *my* eyes glaze over. If one thing they’re trying to convey is the importance and relevance of the scientist’s research to GQ readers, what percentage of the readers are really going to walk away with a deeper understanding of what Dr. Jamieson does by reading that description? It would have been a small thing to ask each participant to submit a layman-friendly version of their research (their “elevator talk” description, for example) for GQ to include.
Finally–one of the “scientists” is Dr. Oz. What is he doing in there? One, I would think he’s already well-known enough; why not save that spot for another scientist? Two, yes, I know he’s actually done research and published, and is on the faculty at Columbia. Fantastic. He’s also a serious woo peddler, who has even featured everyone’s favorite “alternative” doc, Joseph Mercola, on his talk show, and discussed how vaccines may be playing a role in autism and allergies (despite mounds of evidence to the contrary). This seems to completely contradict their goal of “research funding as a national priority,” since Oz is often (and Mercola is always) highly critical of “mainstream medicine.” I really don’t understand his inclusion, and think it’s to the detriment of the rest of the campaign.
The video reminds me of Klip O’Toole.
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