The decades of consequences

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, August 21st, 2011 - 11 comments
Categories: climate change, science - Tags:

Peter Sinclair has been putting out great videos for years on climate change as Climate Crock of the Week. They focus on having a close look at climate change deniers claims.

The following video looks at a series of talking heads claiming that the world is cooling. Such a pity that their own favorite crank on data appears to be finding that the La Nina of 2010 had such a short effect on global climate patterns.  In fact it looks like it was trying to impose itself on a long term trend of warming, and really having little effect except during a very limited period at its peak.

What is notable about this video is that it pulls material in from the 1950’s to the present with scientists pointing out the consequences of our inadvertent experiment in large scale atmospheric modification. Looking at the emerging pattern of extreme weather events, it looks like those decades of wasted opportunities to correct the problem have given way to the decades of consequences.

Everywhere we look, impacts are coming faster and harder than we would have predicted just a few years ago.

The change that is happening to climate in the temperate zones like NZ is that the weather patterns are getting more extreme as the differences in energy stored in the atmosphere and oceans steadily increases. It doesn’t particularly change our average temperatures, winds and rainfall. We are islands surrounded by moderating ocean with its slow currents. But our weather events just get more intense as more cold air masses escape further north and warm air masses mover further south.

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11 comments on “The decades of consequences ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    21 August 2011 at 11:20 am

    Help! Help!
    The extremes of weather events should be signal to even the greatest Deniers. It is hard trying to explain that climate warming is not just a simple rise in temperatures but radical changes to weather patterns. Sometimes extreme coldness or sometimes “heat waves” or droughts are indicators of change.
    (I tried holding my breath for a long time to reduce carbon dioxide emissions but apart from a change of colour nothing much happened. Though my wife was hopeful.)

    • mik e 1.1
      21 August 2011 at 11:33 am

      Climate change deniers are exhibiting an usual human trait they are scared of change but change is not that bad usually we should be putting far more money into R&D Especially with farming and transport because if we don’t change will be forced on us and by then we wom’t have the money to do anything about it

      • Afewknowthetruth 1.1.1
        21 August 2011 at 11:36 am

        R&D?

        The research has been done. The conclusions are irrefutable.

        Theer is no political will to implement appropriate strategies because the government is controlled by banksters.

        • Colonial Viper 1.1.1.1
          21 August 2011 at 11:46 am

          I agree, we have the solutions to cut down our fossily fuel consumption massively already. Public transport, electrified rail, home insulation, renewable sources of heating. But most of these will require significant investment and certain lifestyle changes.

          None of which appears to suit the masses nor the politicians at the moment.

    • Bill 1.2
      21 August 2011 at 12:57 pm

      @ ianmac

      (I tried holding my breath for a long time to reduce carbon dioxide emissions but apart from a change of colour nothing much happened. Though my wife was hopeful.)

      In the interest of pragmatic efficiencies, might I suggest that rather than placing your faith in sequestration technology, that you simply do not breath in next time?

      Though even then, I fear your wife’s hope will be in vain.

  2. Afewknowthetruth 2
    21 August 2011 at 11:32 am

    It is well to remember that corporations have poured tens of millions of dollars into promoting climate change denial via junk science, and are still promoting the myth we have a future that will be like the past, only better, when in reality we are well along the path to complete environmental collapse. It will be pretty much all over by 2030 unless there is an immediate turn-around, as professor Guy McPherson repeatedly points out on Nature Bats Last.

    There will be no turn-around.

    Most people choose convenience and entertainment now in preference to a future for their offspring.

    • RedLogix 2.1
      21 August 2011 at 11:52 am

      I realise you’ve put in a huge effort into this AFKTT, something I rather admire. And long before you I would have been dissapointed and not a little bitter about the outcome.

      Who was it who wrote, “Life kept changing too fast to be comfortable, but not quite fast enough to be exciting”?

      Oh… Kurt Vonnegut I think. Well that was back in the 60’s. Now it’s definitely too fast for comfort. In fact I’m kind of thinking that world as we know it really will end inside the next five or so years. Not literally of course… but metaphorically. Business as usual will end, simply because the contradictions have become too blatant, too unsupportable.

      Or as Cohen put it, “Everyone knows the game is rigged and the Captain lied”.

      I think the fuse is lit.

      • Afewknowthetruth 2.1.1
        21 August 2011 at 12:27 pm

        Yes, the fuse it lit.

        Life as we knew it has been disappearing at an accelerating rate but those in charge refuse to act to even attempt to save the next generation.

        http://guymcpherson.com/2011/08/three-paths-to-near-term-human-extinction/

      • Draco T Bastard 2.1.2
        21 August 2011 at 4:52 pm

        Now it’s definitely too fast for comfort.

        And yet the politicians and “business leaders” try to deny that it’s changing at all which, really, is the big problem.

        • Bored 2.1.2.1
          22 August 2011 at 8:59 am

          I have seen the changes too fast in my lifetime. Back in the 70s I was trying to stop environmental degradation and impact to species. Phyrric victories won, but always the dollar and consumer demand pressing on, the denial industry constantly demanding more.

          It can be depressing to say the least especially when you watch the usual beneficiaries and their apologists taking more and more: witness dairying and the pollution of lowland rivers. More denial by the RWNJs in particular. Well here is some news for those people: your own children will inherit your crap.

  3. Galeandra 3
    21 August 2011 at 10:02 pm

    Crashing silence from one side of the climate ‘debate’. It’s getting lonely talking to ourselves.

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