Party Vibe

We’ve f**ked the planet into the ground, that much is certain. What remains to be seen is whether our esteemed governments will be sufficiently distracted from their feasts of sturgeon caviar and polar bear steak to make a legislative difference. As conscious consumers we must now make a concerted effort to only support sustainable practices.
It’s gonna be an interesting ride, this future of ours.

i read somewhere scientists believe in around 40 years time there will no northern polar ice during summer months. that is no time at all

What about the shirt-sleeves temperatures in Moscow? Major droughts in Oz? Icebergs off the NZ coast? The melting permafrost in Siberia/ Canada? The collapsing water reserves in Africa? Record temperatures in the USA? The intense rainfalls in South America? Numerous reports worldwide, of flora and fauna movin north? And 2006 will have been the hottest year (by a massive 0.5 degree) in England for at least 350 years. I presume you know the answer to your question Angel. The data has been overwhelming for a good few years now.

Its funny cos i posted about AGW (Anthropogenic ie human caused – Global Warming) a few times, and only Raj was interested in my idea of a PV refuge in the uncertain times to come. Who is the northernmost PV person? Can we all come an stay?:groucho: :groucho:

The science has been pretty definite since about 2001 (unfortunately 9/11 distracted us), but it has only really hit home, with the media, in the last year or so. I believe this is because the evidence is now highly visual, and can be finally be understood in less than 30 secs.

It is AGW, for sure, and I’m glad you guys seem to have got the drift. Polar bears are living fossils. Did anyone see the footage of one curling up an dying on the Attenborough program. Thats the future, that is. Dead bears walking (or swimmin!)!:you_crazy

A third of Europe under water, and all the icecaps gone, in 20 years, is perhaps a bit unlikely, but in the last 5 years, all of the new science has been ‘bad news’, so pessimism is certainly the order of the day.

I recommend the website ‘realclimate.org’, a weblog and online resource moderated by climatologists, for answering all those irritating questions, which the skeptics try to muddy the waters with. Check out the biogs of the moderators, they are all heavyweights.

Al Gore’s film is scientifically correct and is supposed to be very powerful, but we should watch it soon, b4 it dates too much. The situation is already worse than he portrays.

The key documents regarding AGW are the reports of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the 4th of which is to be published early next year. It is the work of thousands of the best climate scientists we have, and the FAR (Fourth Assessment Report) will make pretty grim reading, when it is released.

The findings of these reports have become more robust as time has gone on, and the warnings are getting stronger. We are ‘locked in’ to a certain amount of future change ie even if we stopped emitting CO2 and equivalents today, the world would continue to heat up for at least 50 years, probably longer.

Basically, nobody can tell you for certain how bad it will be, but the minimum is pretty bad, especially if you live near the equator, or below/at sea level, and are poor. There are a range of possibilities, but i feel thinkin lucky thoughts, or maybe prayin, might be a good idea.:hopeless:

The worst-case scenario is detailed by James Lovelock, who is a brilliant maverick scientist, probably the most original thinker since Darwin. He has taken up the pessimistic banner. His work is not for the faint hearted, but i recommend it, if you want to know what the upper range of possibilities is. His latest book is called The Revenge of Gaia, i bought it on the day of release (bout 9 months ago), its not a barrel of laughs, to be fair.:cry:

Incidentally, my old man has just bought an apartment in the French Alps, so i was laughin when the OECD report came out last week. In reality, its the lower resorts that are gonna shut first, 1500m and below, as the article says. My old mans new gaff is in Val Thorens, the highest resort in the Alps (the resort is at 2700m-3200m). So we should be better off than the vast majority, in fact i think its a great investment!:horay: :horay:

Sorry General, but there is nowt inherently evil about skiing, my granny used to ski to school, was that a luxury pastime? If you lived in a Nordic or Alpine country you probably wouldn’t think that. And as for the avalanches/ floods thing, i presume you are joking; where exactly do you expect the Swiss to go? Anyway, these are only small points. I’m glad you think we are gonna make it through tho. We are rich westerners, so we certainly have as good a chance as anyone.

I just wish the government would get a fuckin move on, cause we need to be making changes now, not in 10 years, or 5 years, but now. It’ll be a lot cheaper in the long run. Check out the Stern Report – published a couple of weeks ago – if you are interested in the costings.

Thank you if you read the whole post, i’m not an alarmist, i’m just plain alarmed!:hopeless:

almost all motor cars and planes (once constructed) burn fossil fuels, ski’s, to my knowledge, do not. Ski’s used to be planks of wood, and could be again. And that is carbon sequestration, which is a good thing! Of course ski’s are a bit useless without snow, so i wouldn’t be buying a really expensive set, right at the mo!

sorry about your local issues, ‘snowdomes’ are clearly very energy hungry, and therefore surely too expensive to survive, in the future. ‘old school’ artificial slopes (ie plastic) don’t use much energy once they have been built, i don’t think they are a problem.

Clearly, the traditional english skiing holiday, flying to the alps for a week, uses a lot of energy resouces. So yes, that holiday needs to be considerably more expensive, to take account of the ‘externalities’. My folks are going for 2/3 weeks and travelling by heavily laden car (apart from my mum who cant spend 12 hours in a car, with my dad!).

Also, modern ski resorts are v power hungry, so banning snow cannons, skidoo’s, and inefficient ski lifts, may well be necessary.

When i suggested u might be joking about avalanches/floods, i didn’t mean you were wrong about the potential consequences for mountainous regions. I agree avalanches/floods/earthquakes are absolutely gonna happen, in the mountainous regions, there is some info about it on the net. The solution is not to evacuate all mountainous regions, as you suggest, that is the joke i was refering to.:wink: I think there are probably far too many people in the Alps to do that, although i don’t know the figures, so i could be wrong.

The best that can be done is probably to monitor the mountains closely, and ‘manage’ the risk to local populations.

I totally understand your cynicism tho, it is shameful the way our political system seeks to exploit this desperate situation for commercial gain. We need leadership from the business world, not short term profit taking. An interesting book which explores this angle is Collapse by Jared Diamond.He examines different industries responses to enviromental problems, and finds a wide range of responses from different companies, ranging from the very good, to the very bad.

In USA tho, business is way ahead of the government, so i dont think it is all doom and gloom. I do think you are right that commercial companies only seem to take notice when it hits them in the pocket, economics/ accountants really struggle to deal with ‘external’ costs and the like.

I think the sea level rise issue is serious, but is likely to play out over decades, not years. The Antartic will take quite a while to melt, tho maybe not as long as is currently supposed. The crop failures, diminishing water resources and changing rainfall patterns, changing disease patterns and a growing sense of ‘every nation for itself’, may impact us more quickly. In a world of diminishing resources, i think tribal instincts will come to the fore, like in Bosnia.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, i think the whole subject of AGW is both fascinating and frightening. I do share your basic confidence in our ability to put the brakes on, but it is like a high stakes poker game, where one really bad hand could put us in deep trouble.

Nice one, General, i think we basically agree on the scale and seriousness of AGW, now, who lives furthest north? Maybe Raj, or Angel.:group_hug :group_hug :group_hug