Climate change

OK guys, it's official - the IPCC has announced we have absolutely no clue what the future holds in terms of climate ( http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25326-world-must-adapt-to-unknown-climate-future-says-ipcc.html#.Uzj5avmSyaI ).

So what you all of you think is going to happen with the world's weather in the future?

admin: It will get warm, and then cold, and then warm, and then hot....

Pinkie: I prefer the constant temperature hypothesis

admin: There are none.

Pinkie: Is it really irresponsible of me to say I don't care about climate change?
My gut tells me that the planet will be fine, and ultimately I don't know that humans can/will do anything to significantly change weather patterns. Whatever path we're on, is surely the path we're going to stay on until its obvious to everyone we have to change right?
That's pretty much we've done throughout recorded history...

nzlockie: Not necessarily right. It's the old exponential growth problem of the doubling bacteria in the bottle. For the benefit of those who might not know the analogy, imagine if you placed a single bacterium in a bottle with ample food and such at breakfast time. This particular bacterium multiplies itself every minute. When you check at lunch, the whole bottle is full of bacteria. Problem is, when was the bottle less than 1% full. The answer is about six and a half minutes ago. Before that the bacteria had doubled for hours without any problems at all. There was still ample food, much more than 99% of the bottle was free, and life was good. They say that a temperature rise of about 1 degree celcius on average globally would be really drastic at this point in time. So even if humans have only caused 0.01 degrees of temperature change - hardly large enough to really detect properly - that could still mean we are only six minutes from our doom, even if our behavior has never changed.

admin: my point was that seriously, what is going to happen?

Until the sea actually starts flooding LA during a regular high tide - what in Human history gives you the idea that the governments of the world will actually DO anything significant enough to stop this?

First they need to all agree that Climate change is happening. Then they need to agree that it's happening at a rate that is critical. Then they need to find a plan that is capable of reversing or at least halting that change. THEN they have to all agree on that plan. Then they need to implement it - for which they're going to need the people's support.

Call me Eeyore, but I don't think that's going to happen in our lifetime.

I'm happy about the whale thing. I think THAT's a battle we might be able to win in our lifetime.

PS: I was also secretly just trying to get the last post in this thread off Pink stuff... I know, I know, I'm sorry...

nzlockie: > implying that this exact situation has happened before in human history

nzlockie: I don't think it's irresponsible, at least I hope not cause I don't ether. High-5.

nzlockie: I think you failed at last post man.