Climate Change

[Deleted]

With 8,000 records broken in the last month I think it's safe to say we're on a path that we haven't had to go down before.

Climate Change, a naturally occuring process, has been sped up dramatically by human consumtion. There is no way of denying this as the consiquences of our actions are prevelant through out the years, and are only becoming more and more obvious.

World tempratures will continue on an average increase, continuing the mass extinctions we have seen, as well as melt ice from our ice caps, the northern which is nearly non-existant.

Natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and storms will increase as they have been in frequency and scale. Water temprature increases and salt-freshwater content imbalances will fuel this fire.

Everything is exponential. There was no stopping it from the start, only slowing down our effect of a smog shield, which some debate could even be slowing down global warming in the short term, but have drastic long-term effects.

Damage has been done, there is a beautiful hole in the ozone, and our magnetic field continues to advance towards shift.

The yellowstone national park in the United States is tens of thousands of years overdue for its next super-euruption, which occurs roughly every 2-600,000 years, some being more frequent than others. Regardless, we are overdue, and there has been a lot of activity going on at yellowstone that has been wiped off the media and gone dark.

As freshwater continues to dilute salt water, we run the risk of destabalizing our ocean currents, which effect every part of our ecosystem.

Areas of perpetual winter or worse global ramifications could arise due to the weight of water being changed, shutting off our water heat distribution.

A further increase of storm activity can be expected as well.

We have already done damage and we are running out of time before something big starts happening. It all takes time but time does run out eventually.

Personally, I am one of the darkest people when it comes to apocalyptic theories, expecially since a damn lot of them make a damn lot of sense. I'm pretty sure that within the next 10 years humanity will be fighting to survive on a planet that no longer supports civilization the way it is.

Our days living the way civilization has evolved are numbered, in my opinion.

How about you?

[Avaerilon]

We stand upon the brink, as a world society; we can either revise our actions and take measures to act responsibly and in-harmony with nature whilst still being able to meet our needs, or we can continue to damn ourselves until we are faced with the greatest threat to human existence for centuries.

We must, of course, make changes, which may well be viewed as sacrifices, not least by the poorest people who barely survive each day or by industrial giants and corporations. However, many of these changes needed are relatively small and it is easy to make the transition. Investment is needed in other cases; like hydrogen power, or developing infrastructure in the rural poor areas of the world. But several nations, such as Russia, the US, and the UK, all invested billions, if not trillions on space and weapons programmes. Surely it is no great effort to do the same with preserving our continued existence upon the Earth?

Humans are incredibly lucky in that we have the ability to act as we can. But we must remember that with this power comes great responsibility. Our race is the custodian guardian of this beautiful planet. If we let the planet down, we let ourselves down.

While I do not think we shall have such great problems within 10 years, the world may yet prove me ad my optimism wrong. China and India head the emerging economies in polluting and consuming, while the effort largely led by European nations to curb emissions and consumption is (although faltering in some cases and rather shaky) starting to go ahead. However, China now pollutes so much, if the nations of Europe all went carbon-neutral, it would not make a difference.

As Amazonian deforestation continues under Brazil's seemingly relentless drive to compete with its peers, we are losing one of the great defences the Earth granted the animal kingdom (which includes our race). The ability to capture carbon and regulate the atmosphere that the rainforest of South America has is only matched by the oceans of the world. Like the mighty Amazon, they too are falling to greed and devastation.

The GAIA hypothesis states that, when threatened, nature will defend itself against man. Have disease outbreaks (such as the H1N1 incident at Bernard Mathew's factory farm in Norfolk, UK) been the result of a protest, or even attempted rebalance by the Earth? Judging by the powers our world can wield, it is not surprising many people have this view.

N.B. Having studied tectonics and a degree of vulcanology, I can tell you that the Yellowstone volcano's lack of activity is not due to climate change, but simply due to (believed) activity beneath the Earth's surface, or a lack of thereof. Volcanic eruptions are 99.9% of the time caused by nature. It would have to be an atomic bomb, incredibly large-scale earth-working or something similarly big being done to the ground nearby to warrant even altering the activity of the said volcano.

[Deleted]

Avaerilon, your observations are very keen!

When referencing Yellowstone, I am pointing to the natural geothermal condition you listed. Yellowstone, in effect on its own, requires at this moment a great amount of force, as you said, to ignite its caldera. However, it will not require said force to ignite should there be sufficient pressure in the caldera, which, after 600,000 years, I feel might be getting close to the breaking point.

If Yellowstone should be running out of fuel, as some speculate, an eruption of pretty catastrophic scale is still very possible.

There is no way for scientists to accurately measure the caldera and its current pressure level, other than to listen to seismic activity. Once we feel an increase, however, it will be days or less before the eruption.

Said eruption will launch a great deal of debris into the air which would rain down across the United States, as well as help contribute to the blocking of the sun.

With the world on a steady increase in temperatures, it can be pointed to that the increase is due to a huge number of factors, natural and man made. When we look at world temperatures in history we also see major falls in world temperatures, right after great increases. This which we have not readily seen in modern times would also be due to a number of factors.

Coming into the new century with increased volcanic activity, spurred by any reason, or a single mega-eruption anywhere, along with tidal current disruption, and an already fogged atmosphere, could bring about the next "global cooling", which would result in, as you put it, the greatest threat to humanity for centuries, and in some extreme cases, millenia to come.

We would see the increase in worldwide storm activity and natural disasters, culminating in a complete reversal of the geothermal path we're on, towards cooling, by the consequences of said mega-disasters brought on by global warming.

[Newhalla]

All interesting facts but if the north pole melts then cold water will redirect the the Gulf Stream from Scandinavia to Greenland, Thus making a mini ice age in Scandinavia.