[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by speedzak

I don't know how somebody can call global warming a crap!
@amu1983; Maybe it is debatable, But never can be called so!!

I think what he meant was siceitists have views on global warming as well as global cooling (remember "the day after tomorrow")...and can't make up their mind

I agree, also from steeroid's comments, it's quite deducible that nature has it's own way of balancing these factors with rains, winds, snow etc....the balance may not be defined as comfort conditioning of humans though.

[khaadu75]

And as far as solutions go ..... the best that we can do is try and take up as many plantation drives as we can .... and then looking after the plants that have been planted . Find an expanse near your area that is lying barren -- speak with teh concerned authorities and then plant what tree or shrub is best suited to that area ...

The next is probably to try and avoid driving as much as we can .... lesser the fuel burnt , lesser the damage ..... !!! But then we are a car lovers forum ... who luv driving as much as we can ,,, so its a Catch 22 situation .

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by ajitkommini

it's highly probable that humans alone (as opposed to some less intelligent species) will figure out a way to get themselves and other living creatures off a dying planet!

Thats if we survive until then.

In all probability, humans alone will figure out a way of getting rid of all other living species including themselves off this planet.

And we're presuming too much if we think we're responsible for the planet dying - the planet (and nature) is much bigger than anything we can hope to hope to make. It will outlast us, or perhaps get rid of us.

Originally Posted by rjstyles69

Also Steeroid you forgot to mention the colorful rains that was witnessed in parts of kerala. I dont know how far this is true. Well even heard of news that the water in the wells had undergone a color change.

For the record there was a news report on COLORED SNOW falling in parts of Russia about a couple of weeks back.

[Jr Godzilla]

hey fellas the timings coming soon "its revelation time"
cheers

[vezj420]

Ok, let's try and put off the impending disaster, or get rid of it completely!

I recently saw Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" documentary and it is quite shocking....the stats he puts up concerning global warming are only just making their way to the pop media now...

Here's my idea for Indian metros (heck, let's try and change our little corners of the world, right?). I'm not sure if such a scheme has already been implemented in cities here yet, but if it was, I'm sure pollution here would not be so high....

The scheme:
The local RTOs/municipalities should have a hotline for pollution control. With the hotline, the public can report:
a) Illegal burning of garbage, etc.
b) Excessively polluting vehicles (u know the ones spewing black smoke or fog-machine effects)

The RTOs/munis. should then take swift action against the reported erring populace. In the case of (b), they should run an emission test on the vehicle and rectify whatever needs to be rectified on it.

What do you guys think? I know that this sorta plan will take long to implement, esp. in some cities where the local authorities could be less bothered about these things. But it's gotta be done. What about the other cities? Have they implemented something like this already? Who do we need to approach to get this plan into action?

If you guys agree with the plan above, please spread the word so that we may get our respective authorities to follow suit.

"It's gotta start somewhere, it's gotta start sometime. What better place than here, and what better time than now?"
-Rage Against the Machine

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by Steeroid

And we're presuming too much if we think we're responsible for the planet dying - the planet (and nature) is much bigger than anything we can hope to hope to make. It will outlast us, or perhaps get rid of us.

I couldn't agree more. Nature has a way of finding a solution. Like the ice age. Wiped almost everything out. Started again.
I believe when we have destroyed as much as we can, mother earth will just shake us off like fleas, stand up (all this is figuratively speaking lol) and move on. Start again, without us.

[srishiva]

Shaken off like fleas !! Well, it depends on how soon mother earth would shake us off or how violently. Then there will be new species on this earth since we cannot survive. They will excavate us later and debate how these funny looking creatures lived thousands of years ago... One Spielberg of new species would make movie on it....

[turbolader]

Grass is growing in Antartica for the first time, 25,000 people have died of heat wave in Europe, while raging fires have destroyed thousands of miles of forests in Indonesia and Borneo. The world, in short, seems to be going topsy-turvy. Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever, leaving a white blanket over the mountains of Ras al-Khaimah as the desert country experienced a cold spell and above-average rainfall. The mountain cluster, 1,737 metres above sea level, had heavy night-time snowfall for the past two days as a result of temperatures dropping to minus five and stunning the emirate's residents. The 10 hottest years in recorded history have occurred since 1990 - 1998 was the warmest, and 2004 the fourth-warmest. This October is also the warmest October ever. The Arctic region is growing warmer at four times that rate, which means melting ice caps.
According to NASA, the polar ice cap is now melting at the alarming rate of 9% per decade. Arctic ice thickness has decreased 40% since the 1960s. The current pace of sea-level rise is three times the historical rate and appears to be accelerating .
The World Meteorological Organisation estimates that the number of extreme weather events has doubled in the last ten years.
Scientists estimate that the sea level will rise by an additional 19 inches by 2100, and perhaps by as much as 37 inches. Some reports suggest that as many as 2 billion people might be at risk of flooding by 2050.

mmmmmm of course we should be guilty.

[AltoLXI]

Reviving this old thread which was started a decade back. Two articles appeared in New York magazine and New Republic this month, which paint a not-too-rosy scenarios for the earth and the humans. Whether Trump agrees or waves this off as fake news is a different matter though.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...or-humans.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/1438...g-us-right-now

[Ironhide]

Chanced upon this well researched documentary - surely shakes one out of reverie and forces one to think.

In the end, it's us and our unchecked greed, the planet be damned !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkPBam3qO34

We're all equally guilty - the point is what are we, as individuals, as influencers, as citizens, as voters, as policymakers, or simply as (supposedly) the most intelligent residents of planet earth are doing about it?


(Not so many) Cheers !

[Ironhide]

Here's an article in nymag.com about climate change. It is stark and alarming.





Here's another article on how Climate Change is rendering the earth too hot to be habitable - slightly long reading .

Makes me wonder what are we, in our capacity as citizens / individuals/ policymakers/ voters / influencers doing to combat this? Would be it an instance of maybe too little, too late?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CZL3JZGLKY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKS1alqiiU

(Articles & picture Courtesy : www.nymag.com , Videos Courtesy : www.youtube.com)

[ksameer1234]

Originally Posted by Ironhide

Makes me wonder what are we, in our capacity as citizens / individuals/ policymakers/ voters / influencers doing to combat this? Would be it an instance of maybe too little, too late?

I'll probably be going against the popular opinion but I believe that there isn't much that we can do to stall or reduce global warming. Reason being that largest contributing greenhouse gas is water vapour and not CO2. Water vapour concentration is far more than other greenhouse gases and anthropogenic emissions have little bearing on the overall concentration of greenhouse gas emissions. There are several reputed websites speaking out this, just adding one link here: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fe...r_warming.html

That being said, there is a lot we can do to save the environment from degrading further and cleaner fuel/energy is one way of doing that. Just that global warming is something that will happen regardless of our interventions, possibly because it is a natural cycle.

Disclaimer: My day-job is advising/working on climate change related topics.

[Ironhide]

Originally Posted by ksameer1234

I'll probably be going against the popular opinion but I believe that there isn't much that we can do to stall or reduce global warming. Reason being that largest contributing greenhouse gas is water vapour and not CO2. Water vapour concentration is far more than other greenhouse gases and anthropogenic emissions have little bearing on the overall concentration of greenhouse gas emissions.

That's interesting. I always thought CO2 to be the most significant greenhouse gas. This was a revelation. Of course there is Methane which is much more potent then CO2 in trapping heat & warming the atmosphere. However, another website talks about the incremental effect of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in increasing the total amount of water vapour in the environment, by adding to global warming. To quote them here,

When skeptics use this argument, they are trying to imply that an increase in CO2 isn't a major problem. If CO2 isn't as powerful as water vapor, which there's already a lot of, adding a little more CO2 couldn't be that bad, right? What this argument misses is the fact that water vapor creates what scientists call a 'positive feedback loop' in the atmosphere — making any temperature changes larger than they would be otherwise.

How does this work? The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere exists in direct relation to the temperature. If you increase the temperature, more water evaporates and becomes vapor, and vice versa. So when something else causes a temperature increase (such as extra CO2 from fossil fuels), more water evaporates. Then, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, this additional water vapor causes the temperature to go up even further—a positive feedback.

How much does water vapor amplify CO2 warming? Studies show that water vapor feedback roughly doubles the amount of warming caused by CO2. So if there is a 1°C change caused by CO2, the water vapor will cause the temperature to go up another 1°C. When other feedback loops are included, the total warming from a potential 1°C change caused by CO2 is, in reality, as much as 3°C.

The other factor to consider is that water is evaporated from the land and sea and falls as rain or snow all the time. Thus the amount held in the atmosphere as water vapour varies greatly in just hours and days as result of the prevailing weather in any location. So even though water vapour is the greatest greenhouse gas, it is relatively short-lived. On the other hand, CO2 is removed from the air by natural geological-scale processes and these take a long time to work. Consequently CO2 stays in our atmosphere for years and even centuries. A small additional amount has a much more long-term effect.

So skeptics are right in saying that water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas. What they don't mention is that the water vapor feedback loop actually makes temperature changes caused by CO2 even bigger.

This is explained by this video

https://youtu.be/u9L49p9Y8Mg

That being said, there is a lot we can do to save the environment from degrading further and cleaner fuel/energy is oney way of doing that. Just that global warming is something that will happen regardless of our interventions, possibly because it is a natural cycle.

Disclaimer: My day-job is advising/working on climate change related topics.

While it may be a natural cycle, isn't it a fact that the average Global temperatures have risen significantly after the advent of the modern industrial age? The natural cycle is said to have been more or less unchanged in the past, however, climate globally has only changed (for the worse, I may add) in the last couple of centuries. Maybe we humans have had a major role to play in disrupting it?

Just thinking aloud.

(Video Courtesy : www.youtube.com, article courtesy : https://www.skepticalscience.com )

[ksameer1234]

Originally Posted by Ironhide

Of course there is Methane which is much more potent then CO2 in trapping heat & warming the atmosphere.

There are 6-7 major greenhouse gases and their potency is a function of their concentration in atmosphere, global warming potential (with respect to CO2, whose potential is 1) and the duration for which these gases reside in atmosphere before decomposing. Methane is potent but its concentration is one-hundredth of CO2 in atmosphere. Water vapour and CO2 are most potent greenhouse gases basis above factors. Concentration of water vapour is about 1000 times more than CO2 (source: http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/Fun...hereCompIV.pdf)

incremental effect of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in increasing the total amount of water vapour in the environment, by adding to global warming.

This positive loop definitely exists for water vapour which is actually causing the runaway increase in average temperature of earth. Higher temperature leads to increase in water vapour which leads to more global warming. Also, polar ice caps are natural reflectors of solar irradiation but due to rising temperature, they are melting away thus causing more heat to be absorbed by earth's surface.

While it may be a natural cycle, isn't it a fact that the average Global temperatures have risen significantly after the advent of the modern industrial age?

This is undeniable. But sometimes I wonder if there is any correlation between these two trends, i.e, increasing industrialisation (more CO2) and increasing temperature.

OT: There is a popular joke of frog not jumping when its legs are cut-off leading to conclusion that cutting the legs of frog makes it deaf.

The natural cycle is said to have been more or less unchanged in the past, however, climate globally has only changed (for the worse, I may add) in the last couple of centuries. Maybe we humans have had a major role to play in disrupting it?

If the life of planet earth till now is normalised to 24 hours, then humans have arrived only a minute before midnight and industrial age has started only a second before midnight. Don't know if such a profound impact is possible within such a short period of time. If so, we are probably the worst thing to have happened to this planet.

Again, global warming is very accepted phenomenon and human activities have been attributed the biggest cause for this. I have no intention to deny that but what I have learnt over the years somehow does not align with general opinion.

[im_srini]

Originally Posted by ksameer1234

...
If the life of planet earth till now is normalised to 24 hours, then humans have arrived only a minute before midnight and industrial age has started only a second before midnight.
Don't know if such a profound impact is possible within such a short period of time.
...

But, doesn't this argument assume that the Earth was formed the way it currently exists right from the very beginning ? I remember vaguely from 'Cosmos' (or some such show) that if the "life" of Earth is scaled down to 24 hours, then it's 4 hours before uni-cellular "life" originates, it's almost 6 hours before we get early photosynthesis, only around 21:30 Hrs do we see the first plants on land, & it's almost 23:45 before we see modern mammals & the warm, wet, climate we see today.

While we humans may have arrived to the party late, we have caused disastrous effects on our environment before, remember the whole "Ozone Hole" thing ? But then, somehow, we were able to come together & ban CFCs & "patch" the hole. The current emissions regime for automobiles stem from severe smog in the cities in the U.S. way back in the 60s' & 70s, isn't the current smog situation in Delhi where the U.S. cities were 50 years ago ?

At the end of the day, I'm no climate scientist, so when 97% of those who do nothing but climate science conclude that we're putting ourselves & the planet in jeopardy, I believe them.