Too late 3

Written By: - Date published: 12:38 pm, October 9th, 2009 - 7 comments
Categories: climate change, Environment - Tags:

I know I’m banging on about it this week, but it’s rather an important topic! This clip from Wake Up Freak Out is an accessible introduction to the science of the tipping points that are going to accelerate climate change. As the title of my posts in this series suggests, I think we’re too late. It’s heartening to see that the creators of this clip think there is still time — if we act now:

There is less than one week left to make a submission on the National-Maori Party changes to the Emissions Trading Scheme.

7 comments on “Too late 3 ”

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  1. Terry 1
    9 October 2009 at 1:36 pm

    Keep it up rOb! And don’t be apologetic about it. This isn’t an issue that anyone is allowed to ignore. Its going to affect all of us and more importantly those most vulnerable in the world who aren’t even responsible for it.

    This is the best summary of climate change I’ve seen, good stuff!

  2. Jarvis Pink 2
    9 October 2009 at 1:45 pm

    …and a good illustration of the difference between pessimism and apathy.

  3. marty mars 3
    9 October 2009 at 2:41 pm

    sometimes r0b i think we are well on the way to the next major extinction event and that the earth will shrug us off and sometimes i am filled with hope and believe that we can make enough changes to make a difference

    this animation is really quite good and although i felt myself quibbling at some of the micro points the solution is one that i agree with

    don’t stop these posts please

  4. Brett 4
    9 October 2009 at 4:13 pm

    Well if it happens, that’s just the way it goes.
    Rob you should go and check out peakoil.com they have been debating this “end is nigh” stuff for years you would fit right in.

  5. Herodotus 5
    9 October 2009 at 4:41 pm

    The earth has experienced warmer conditions that this within the last 800 years, yet we are still here. The approach to man made effects (I am a doubter to some of these) is the output of CO2 where is the balance with all the destruction of plant life and the IPCC with deforestation. Perhaps there is as much stuff being outputed up there that always has been. But we need greeen things to convert back to O2. Why no mention of 3rd world destruction of this habitate?

    • NickS 5.1
      10 October 2009 at 1:14 pm

      /facepalm

      No, it hasn’t, the Medieval Warm Period was restricted to the Northern Atlantic (go google scholar hunting, Nick is on a cRPG bender), while the areas around the Pacific experienced cooling. Current climate change is global, but also at rates were last experienced when humanity were hunter-gathers and not tied heavily to agriculture, of which, tends to get screwed over when temperatures spike during the growing season, but also need a steady water source. Which is threatened by changes in precipitation, r.e. Australia and Africa and loss of glacial ice, r.e. parts of Asia, and west Coast of South America, which provides steady water through the summer growing months…

      And third world loss of forests and other habitats is of concern, and a fairly big issue within conservation for the last 3 decades, and from memory is probably in the IPCC reports.

      Also, a good deal of the carbon emissions comes from fossil sources, sources which took millions of years to form, so it’s not as simple as going “grow more plants” to deal with it, but also, we actually need this thing called “land” for growing “crops”. Though there are methods to reduce soil-carbon loss in agriculture, which is one of the major carbon sinks…

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