[Bas]

IPCC: Too late for GW mitigation; we can only adapt

I'm always afraid that such language will result in people and politicians thinking that we don't have to do anything because we can't do anything, which is not true; such thinking is defeatism, and defeatism on very big scale and important issue.

What can be done Bas...??

We burn more coal/oil/wood we heat the planet ...

We burn less coal/oil/wood we heat the planet...
.

that's exactly the kind of thinking I was talking about; burning less coal will matter in the long term, even if we can't stop catastrophic climate change during this century, the situation in say 2100 or 2150 can be alot better if we start to use less coal vs more over the course of the first half; there is a difference.

[dohboi]

I doubt that my attitude is "helpful," but my take is that this latest report reconfirms what I have strongly suspected since I was a wee laddie--that humans have done irreversible damage to the living world and have lost any claim or right we may ever have had to use resources at rates beyond what other species do. I know it is a political non-starter (and doubtless so in every other area), but it strikes me that the only attitude that makes any sense now is the very old fashioned one of penance.

We have really totally failed as a civilization and species in about the most spectacular way imaginable--dooming not only ourselves but much, perhaps all, of complex life to oblivion. We certainly now have no right to use any more of the earth's resources than is necessary to live out our days, if that.

Of course, by typing on this machine, I am already violating this ethic, but hey, knowing what is right is important, even if one has not yet mustered the courage to do it.

[essex]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/un ... 5820614171

United Nations' blunder on glaciers exposed by Chris Hastings and Jonathan Leake From: The Australian, January 18, 2010:
THE peak UN body on climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports - that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming - was based on a "speculative" claim by an obscure Indian scientist.
The 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming, appears to have simply adopted the untested opinions of the Indian glaciologist from a magazine article published in 1999.

The IPCC report claimed that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish inside 30 years. But the scientists behind the warning have now admitted it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science ( fiction ) journal, published eight years before the IPCC's report.

[PrestonSturges]

OMG, an improperly cited quote from 1999! That changes everything!

I notice the newspaper article cites no data.

[Tanada]

Interesting how they ignore the photographic evidence from the glacier that forms the headwaters of the Ganges. There have been decades of retreat with photographic proof recording the new terminus point over and over as it retreats up the mountains.

[pablonite]

Interesting how they ignore the photographic evidence from the glacier that forms the headwaters of the Ganges. There have been decades of retreat with photographic proof recording the new terminus point over and over as it retreats up the mountains.

I'm sure someone here knows but I read of the thousands of glaciers in the world only about half are even being monitored and that some are growing, some are shrinking and some are stable. Was this about right?

[Nano]

Is it bad intent behind such stories as this, or is it pure ignorance and denial?

[PrestonSturges]

Interesting how they ignore the photographic evidence from the glacier that forms the headwaters of the Ganges. There have been decades of retreat with photographic proof recording the new terminus point over and over as it retreats up the mountains.

I'm sure someone here knows but I read of the thousands of glaciers in the world only about half are even being monitored and that some are growing, some are shrinking and some are stable. Was this about right?

There is dramatic retreat in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, not too sure what's up in Africa.

When I hear "some" are growing, I never hear anyone say where they are, or if its someone looking at a glacier which is melting and sliding downhill but a denier counts that as "growth."

If someone can name one glacier that's growing more than a tiny amount I'd be grateful, if they could name 3 I'd be astonished.

[PrestonSturges]

Is it bad intent behind such stories as this, or is it pure ignorance and denial?

Denial is a well funded industry

[hillsidedigger]

I think many more than just one person has noticed what is going on with the Himilayan glaciers.

[pablonite]

If someone can name one glacier that's growing more than a tiny amount I'd be grateful, if they could name 3 I'd be astonished.

I don't know, is this ALL bullshiat then? It was a google search for growing glaciers...

http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm

I am familiar with a couple fo glaciers and they have shrunk over the years.
I find looking around it's as if the UN has taken over the "global glacier count", of course

The Swiss have their own mapping and data that shows many are retreating, but some are growing.

Anyway, are we not still warming from the last mini ice age? An ice age left them there to begin with correct?

[pablonite]

What is up with this glacier? Fresh off the news wire...

Alaska's largest glacier is once again surging
http://www.adn.com/life/science/story/1096671.html

But is it because this is winter?

When the glacier last surged in 1993 through 1995,

Not?

[PrestonSturges]

What is up with this glacier? Fresh off the news wire...

Alaska's largest glacier is once again surging
http://www.adn.com/life/science/story/1096671.html

But is it because this is winter?

When the glacier last surged in 1993 through 1995,

Not?

"Surging" does not equal growing, it can just mean it's sliding down hill, not adding mass.

[PrestonSturges]

If someone can name one glacier that's growing more than a tiny amount I'd be grateful, if they could name 3 I'd be astonished.

I don't know, is this ALL bullshiat then? It was a google search for growing glaciers...

http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm

I am familiar with a couple fo glaciers and they have shrunk over the years.
I find looking around it's as if the UN has taken over the "global glacier count", of course

The Swiss have their own mapping and data that shows many are retreating, but some are growing.

Anyway, are we not still warming from the last mini ice age? An ice age left them there to begin with correct?

Regards glaciers in the Alps - Italy and Switzerland have been cooperating to redraw their border because glaciers covered some of their shared border, and as the glaciers retreat they are exposing terrain that has never been mapped and solid ground where the borders were never drawn,

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europ ... index.html

[cudabachi]

Here we were not too many thousands of years ago. I think those glaciers retreated as well. Damned cavemen and their campfires.

[shortonsense]

Here we were not too many thousands of years ago. I think those glaciers retreated as well. Damned cavemen and their campfires.

Horrifying.......are you sure there wasn't a coal fired power plant SOMEWHERE to blame all that melting on?

Imagine all the methane hydrates which have ALREADY melted and caused the Holocene A and B, Minoan, Roman and Medievel Warmings....maybe we are at the tail end of their melting....and the soon to restart Ice Ages are AGAIN on the way?

NOW I'm worried.....

[Ludi]

Here we were not too many thousands of years ago. I think those glaciers retreated as well. Damned cavemen and their campfires.

http://www.grist.org/article/glaciers-h ... d-receded/

http://www.grist.org/article/global-war ... thing-new/

[timmac]

The Grist.org website just post assumptions from GW scientist, they are not facts..

Dr Hawking stated that all scientific inquiry is based on a series of assumptions….. If these assumptions are inaccurate, then your conclusion falls apart….

[cudabachi]

Here we were not too many thousands of years ago. I think those glaciers retreated as well. Damned cavemen and their campfires.

http://www.grist.org/article/glaciers-h ... d-receded/

http://www.grist.org/article/global-war ... thing-new/

Excellent articles to convince someone who doesn't believe in global warming. Unfortunately, I believe the globe is warming.

[Ludi]

The Grist.org website just post assumptions from GW scientist, they are not facts..

Could you post some facts, please?

Thanks.