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AndyH said:
crisis or not?

Understand, Andy, I'm not saying it is a problem. I'm not saying it isn't serious.

A crisis is an infection. Ebola. Flu. You get sick fast, you either get over it and get well, and you go back normal. Or die.

A long term problem is Diabetes. At first, you don't notice anything, only a careful measurement of blood sugar shows that there is a problem. Eventually after years to decades, it can kill you, if you don't take measures to lower blood sugar. Even if you do, you need to maintain and perhaps increase those measures for the rest of your life. You never get back to "normal".

Climate change is a long term problem, not a crisis.

If you don't understand the difference, don't bother trying to make climate change into a crisis. It isn't one. I'm not saying it is a problem. I'm not saying it isn't serious.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
crisis or not?

Understand, Andy, I'm not saying it is a problem. I'm not saying it isn't serious.

A crisis is an infection. Ebola. Flu. You get sick fast, you either get over it and get well, and you go back normal. Or die.

A long term problem is Diabetes. At first, you don't notice anything, only a careful measurement of blood sugar shows that there is a problem. Eventually after years to decades, it can kill you, if you don't take measures to lower blood sugar. Even if you do, you need to maintain and perhaps increase those measures for the rest of your life. You never get back to "normal".

Climate change is a long term problem, not a crisis.

If you don't understand the difference, don't bother trying to make climate change into a crisis. It isn't one. I'm not saying it is a problem. I'm not saying it isn't serious.
Yes, Wet, thank you for your repeated attempts to educate us all on the definition of 'crisis' from your point of view. I get it. I suspect that most of the rest of the group understands as well.

Here's your problem - and the only part of your point of view that from my experience is very wrong: "Climate change is a long term problem, not a crisis."

Climate change IS absolutely a 'long term problem' - agreed.
Climate change is ALSO a crisis because it IS affecting people all over this planet in immediate and existential ways.

Look at the picture of the houses from Alaska again. Put yourself inside one - where you're looking out the window while waiting for the morning coffee to brew. For months or years the ground under your house has been softening and the building's shifts have been tiny. "long term" Then one afternoon, while you walk to the kitchen from your office to start a new pot of coffee, the house tips on its side. At that point it's gets really, really "crisis-ey" really quickly.

One can suggest that the road to insolvency is a "long term problem" right up until the day they can no longer pay their mortgage - then things get exciting fast. For more and more people on this planet, things have been getting much more exciting than they'd prefer...

Climate change is both - and until we understand exactly where all the possible tipping points are hiding, I think it's in our best interest to stick closer to 'crisis' than 'ho-hum'.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
I get it.

Well, ok. But the rest of your post shows you don't. Let us agree to disagree.
Can you see yourself in the house in Alaska, Wet? Do you understand not only the definition but also the effect of a tipping point? Do you know where all the tipping points are in the climate system?

Do you somehow think that climate change is not a current crisis for American citizens today? If not, why not?
 
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
I get it.

Well, ok. But the rest of your post shows you don't. Let us agree to disagree.
Do you know where all the tipping points are in the climate system?

Of course not. I do know that the climate system is slow. It takes decades to centuries for most things to happen. Why? We have probably hit some of the tipping points I do know a bit about

Greenland, for example, is unstable. If there was no ice sheet, the surface of Greenland would much lower altitude, which would make the surface too warm to regrow an ice sheet. Because the ice sheet raises the altitude, the surface is colder, and the ice sheet remains. Warm the climate enough, and we are probably close to that, and the Greenland ice sheet starts to collapse. Slowly the surface of the ice declines, first at cm per century, later at cm decade, finally at a few cm per year. Fast, on a geologic scale of time, mostly melted in something like 3000 to 10,000 years.

AndyH said:
Do you somehow think that climate change is not a current crisis for American citizens today? If not, why not?

Crisis or problem? To use the analogy I gave before, Diabetes (untreated) is more lethal than Ebola... But Diabetes will take years, not days or hours, before your symptoms get severe. Diabetes isn't a crisis, at least until you are almost dead, after you are already blind, your feet have long been amputated due to loss of circulation and infection, etc.

Saying climate change isn't a crisis does not mean it isn't a serous problem.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Do you somehow think that climate change is not a current crisis for American citizens today? If not, why not?

Crisis or problem? To use the analogy I gave before, Diabetes (untreated) is more lethal than Ebola... But Diabetes will take years, not days or hours, before your symptoms get severe. Diabetes isn't a crisis, at least until you are almost dead, after you are already blind, your feet have long been amputated due to loss of circulation and infection, etc.

Saying climate change isn't a crisis does not mean it isn't a serous problem.
I gave you a distinct and real-world example - why do you ignore it and roll-back to diabetes? Did I fail to communicate or are you dodging and weaving?
 
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Do you somehow think that climate change is not a current crisis for American citizens today? If not, why not?

Crisis or problem? To use the analogy I gave before, Diabetes (untreated) is more lethal than Ebola... But Diabetes will take years, not days or hours, before your symptoms get severe. Diabetes isn't a crisis, at least until you are almost dead, after you are already blind, your feet have long been amputated due to loss of circulation and infection, etc.

Saying climate change isn't a crisis does not mean it isn't a serous problem.
I gave you a distinct and real-world example - why do you ignore it and roll-back to diabetes? Did I fail to communicate or are you dodging and weaving?

If the USA was living on permafrost near a usually frozen ocean, climate change might well be a crisis. However, that is not the case. So why discuss that example?
 
WetEV said:
...If the USA was living on permafrost near a usually frozen ocean, climate change might well be a crisis...
Or, to use another example, if the USA had major cities with tens of millions of residents at risk of rising sea levels?

A few years back, scientists figured Antarctica as a whole was in balance, neither gaining nor losing ice. Experts worried more about Greenland; it was easier to get to and more noticeable, but once they got a better look at the bottom of the world, the focus of their fears shifted. Now scientists in two different studies use the words "irreversible" and "unstoppable" to talk about the melting in West Antarctica. Ice is gaining in East Antarctica, where the air and water are cooler, but not nearly as much as it is melting to the west.

"Before Antarctica was much of a wild card," said University of Washington ice scientist Ian Joughin. "Now I would say it's less of a wild card and more scary than we thought before."

Over at NASA, ice scientist Eric Rignot said the melting "is going way faster than anyone had thought. It's kind of a red flag."...

The world's fate hangs on the question of how fast the ice melts.

At its current rate, the rise of the world's oceans from Antarctica's ice melt would be barely noticeable, about one-third of a millimeter a year. The oceans are that vast.

But if all the West Antarctic ice sheet that's connected to water melts unstoppably, as several experts predict, there will not be time to prepare. Scientists estimate it will take anywhere from 200 to 1,000 years to melt enough ice to raise seas by 10 feet, maybe only 100 years in a worst case scenario. If that plays out, developed coastal cities such as New York and Guangzhou could face up to $1 trillion a year in flood damage within a few decades and countless other population centers will be vulnerable.

"Changing the climate of the Earth or thinning glaciers is fine as long as you don't do it too fast. And right now we are doing it as fast as we can. It's not good," said Rignot, of NASA...

http://www.redding.com/news/wire-news/the-big-melt-antarcticas-retreating-ice-may-re-shape-earth" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Back to the OP, I really don't care if you want to call it a "crises", or use the even more alarming terms the BOAS did:

edatoakrun said:
The Doomsday clock has been moved forward to its most advanced level in ~three decades, and climate change is now plsced first among the risks.


IT IS 3 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

2015: Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization.
http://thebulletin.org/timeline" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
WetEV said:
If the USA was living on permafrost near a usually frozen ocean, climate change might well be a crisis. However, that is not the case. So why discuss that example?
So if I read this properly, what you're saying Wet is that a global phenomenon that is a crisis for someone else, another "tribe" say, is not a crisis for you or "your tribe"? If you take this argument ad absurdum -- i.e., why stop there, at the national level? -- if you, individually, are living well inland, 100 feet above sea level and are more or less self sufficient, does it ever amount to a crisis? If half of Florida begins to submerge, it's not a crisis for you because you live a continent away?

I'm not criticizing you or this interpretation of crisis, but just trying to clarify your argument. I understand your analogy, but if diabetes is "merely" beginning to affect the circulation in someone's right foot, is it a crisis to that person or not? They're years from dying, after all, and it's in a 'distant' part of the body (compared to where a lot of "more important" action takes place).

My vote would be to do something about it ASAP, even if I were just that person's left ear. i.e., if my physician told me not to worry because it is a problem but not a crisis, it just wouldn't sound right.
 
edatoakrun said:
Or, to use another example, if the USA had major cities with tens of millions of residents at risk of rising sea levels?

The climate change that doomed West Antarctica's ice was caused CO2 released decades ago. It's melting, Jim.

edatoakrun said:
Back to the OP, I really don't care if you want to call it a "crises", or use the even more alarming terms the BOAS did:

edatoakrun said:
climate change ... pose(s) extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity

I agree with the BOAS.

Notice by reading carefully that I'm mostly talking about proper use of the English language: a fire in your house is a crisis, dry rot or termites are not. All of these can leave your house as a pile of rubble. Proper and careful use of language matters when talking to "skeptics".
 
mbender said:
So if I read this properly,

No, I don't think you are getting my intent. More details. Diabetes is currently defined as "fasting blood sugar" over 125 mg/dl, and there are no other symptoms if you are just barely diabetic, serious symptoms start at much higher blood sugar levels. Only if you ignore diabetes can the blood sugar rise to levels where other symptoms happen, and you can get to a crisis, and then the diabetes itself isn't the crisis, the symptoms such as loss of circulation are.

I think diabetes is a useful analogy to climate change, as there are few serious symptoms to the level of climate change we see today. The analogy isn't exact, of course.

A personal note.

My grandmother was just "pre-diabetic" (fasting blood sugar over 100 mg/dl) or just barely diabetic for over 30 years. Diabetes can be managed, but you don't need to start ASAP, it is not a crisis. You must, however, manage it, and maintain the management. If you don't... very bad things will happen.

I'm also "pre-diabetic", with a fasting blood sugar of ~103 mg/dl, and at the rate my blood sugar is rising, about 1mg/dl per year, I'll be to just barely diabetic in few decades. Give or take a bit. And if I can keep the same rate of rise, serious symptoms are well after my life expectancy. I'm hoping to just manage the disease, and never reach a crisis.

Notice that this is a different class of problem than a crisis.

Climate change is more similar to Diabetes than it is to Plague. Plague is a crisis, it can be cured with an antibiotic if done ASAP, and then it is over. Climate change isn't a crisis. We can wait, but we need to manage it to prevent very bad things from happening in the future. The analogy isn't exact, in that some bad things are happening to a few people in the most exposed locations, such as the village in Alaska, and we have already triggered the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, so over a hundred years or more the sea level is going up an extra 3 meters. But perhaps it is a useful analogy...
 
I do know what you are saying, and while part of me knows I'm nitpicking and/or getting too far into semantics, part of me is not.

Second, while I appreciate the personal note, I know a bit about diabetes, too. And although you bring it up as an "body:planet" analogy, I actually think that, epidemiologically, it can be compared more directly with climate change. That is, I think it has the potential to, and most likely will, kill as many or more people than any disruption(s) caused by "climate chaos"; that, on a global scale, it (and its associated metabolic syndrome) is a much bigger problem and will likely become a crisis if it is not dealt with.

I'm also pretty convinced that not only can it (type 2) be managed, but that it can be effectively reversed if caught soon enough. See any or many of Dr. Robert Lustig's talks (possibly starting with the 2010 classic that started his outspokenness, Sugar: The Bitter Truth) for the full reasoning and argument behind this conviction. He -- and he has impeccable credentials -- believes that excessive and ubiquitous added sugar (combined with fiber removal) is essentially "the new tobacco", and is planning to hold 'Big Food' accountable in the same way that 'Big Tobacco' was with cigarettes*. You will hear more of him, I guarantee it.

So while early diabetic indicators may pose a problem for the individual, the number of diabetic people (who fail to manage or reverse the disease, for whatever reason), en masse, is also a big problem for humanity as a whole, just as climate change is. And both will cause severe crises for many down the road if ignored.


I realize that I've gone a bit off-topic from an analogy, but I think it's somewhat relevant to the thread, regardless. And that's because if you look at diet-related chronic disease and deaths from them (and there are many), we might want to move the big hand one more minute closer to midnight. :-\


* of course, 'Big Food' is much bigger than 'Big Tobacco' was, so it will be a much 'Bigger Fight'...
 
mbender said:
See any or many of Dr. Robert Lustig's talks (possibly starting with the 2010 classic that started his outspokenness, Sugar: The Bitter Truth) for the full reasoning and argument behind this conviction. He -- and he has impeccable credentials -- believes that excessive and ubiquitous added sugar (combined with fiber removal) is essentially "the new tobacco", and is planning to hold 'Big Food' accountable in the same way that 'Big Tobacco' was with cigarettes*. You will hear more of him, I guarantee it.

For anyone interested: along similar lines, Dr. Fuhrman has had great success in helping diabetics become non-diabetic in a matter of weeks without medication, even insulin-dependent Type2 diabetics.

http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/Diabetes.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h92Ath_2XA[/youtube]

I think that reducing our carbon emissions is wishful thinking at this point.

So stopping emissions isn't even enough - we're going too fast?

We're going too fast right now. This part of Western Antarctica is going to fall apart no matter what.

How much sea level rise is contained in the ice?

So Pine Island, Thwaites, and its neighbors contain about one meter global sea level rise. If that whole sector goes down to sea, it will entrain the retreat of the rest of West Antarctica. We're talking about three to five meters of sea level rise...

That's a "holy ****" moment.

That's not "holy ****" it's worse than that... We're not ready for this.
 
As the it's not happening argument has collapsed with observed results of global heating, the apologists for the fossil fuel pollution lobby are increasingly relying on the maybe it won't be too bad and it's too hard to fix arguments for continuing with business as usual.

Another one of those commie/greenie alarmists, the Milton Friedman professor of economics at the University of Chicago, lays out the scope of potential total global heating and the various choices we have to solve the problem.

If We Dig Out All Our Fossil Fuels, Here’s How Hot We Can Expect It to Get


World leaders are once again racing to avert disastrous levels of global warming through limits on greenhouse gas emissions. An agreement may be in reach, but because of the vast supplies of inexpensive fossil fuels, protecting the world from climate change requires the even more difficult task of disrupting today’s energy markets....

To understand the scope of this challenge, I’ve tallied the projected warming from fossil fuels extracted so far and the projected warming capacity of various fossil fuels that can be extracted with today’s technology. This accounting was done by taking the embedded carbon dioxide in each energy source and using a standard model for the relationship between cumulative carbon emissions and long-run temperature changes based on a 2009 Nature article. (More detail on the method is available here.)

For those who don’t like suspense, here’s the total: an astonishing 16.2 degrees...

There are essentially only three long-run solutions to the climate challenge...

If we use all of the fossil fuels in the ground, the planet will warm in a way that is difficult to imagine. Unless the economics of energy markets change, we are poised to use them.

Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman professor of economics at the University of Chicago...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/upshot/if-we-dig-out-all-our-fossil-fuels-heres-how-hot-we-can-expect-it-to-get.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
See the video of the speech at the link.


In Alaska, Obama Paints Grim Picture of Climate Change


In an address to world leaders at the State Department-sponsored GLACIER conference in Anchorage, Alaska last night, President Barack Obama spoke in no uncertain terms about the need to put an end to the “urgent and growing threat of a changing climate.”

The President is in Alaska to talk about climate change this week, because, he says, the Arctic is “the leading indicator of what the climate faces.” He noted that over the last 60 years, Alaska has warmed about twice as fast as the rest of the U.S...

He reprimanded those who would criticize taking action on climate change for economic reasons. “The irony, of course, is few things will disrupt our lives as profoundly as climate change,” the President said. “Few things can have as negative an impact on our economy as climate change.”

This speech follows last month’s announcement of the President’s Clean Power Plan, an ambitious set of environmental regulations that aim to drastically reduce carbon emissions by 2030. It’s clear that in the last year of his presidency, Obama is working hard to make addressing climate change a crucial part of his legacy and to ensure the next President takes up the fight, as well.

Here’s POTUS’s speech in full:
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/obama-alaska-climate-change/

IMO, A rational assessment of the large benefits and reasonable costs of talking action to avoid catastrophic climate change, caused by Anthropogenic global heating.

President Trump's future Build a Sea Wall Around the United States speech, not so much so...
 
Obama Is The 44th President To Experience Alaskan Glacier Melting provides some data to go along with the rhetoric:

glacierbaymap.gif


Seasonal_Yearly_Temp_Change_77_F.png


Clearly Barrow is warmer, but it appears that according to The Alaska Climate Research Center the average temperature change for Alaska for the 38-year period through the end of last year is -0.1F.
 
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