/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2296610

There are many events these past few years that might have been made possible by anthropogenic global warming. Most recently, parts of Australia have received more rainfall and flooding than at any point in their entire recorded history.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1718

There was also Pakistan's massive flooding this past summer, which was also unprecedented in recorded history.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10889925

There were also the Russian wildfires, which killed tens of thousands of Muscovites, and turned Moscow into Silent Hill for several days. This may also be unprecedented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires

Then there was the flooding in Tennessee, back in May. NOAA called it a "one-in-a-thousand-year event"

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ohx/?n=may2010epicfloodevent

Due to the lengthy research and peer review process, it'll be some time before scientists can publish their analysis of the extreme weather events that happened recently. However, scientists do mostly agree that these sorts of events will become more common as the climate is increasingly destabilized.

>>2230496

The past summer we've had at least three possible one-in-a-thousand year extreme weather events: the fires in Russia, the flooding in Pakistan, and the flooding in Tennessee. Pakistan's flooding had never occurred in recorded history, and affected one-fifth of the entire land area. 15,000 people died in Moscow from the heat wave and smoke inhalation, and Russia banned wheat exports due to a precipitous decline in crop yields.

This is especially unusual because we're currently in the deepest solar minimum in a century and in a La Nina phase. Yet 2010 is possibly the hottest year ever recorded.

>>2193708

Tell that to the 15,000 or so Muscovites that died this summer

>>2193709

>And that's not going to happen for a good long while.

See above

Russia thought they were going to be net beneficiaries of climate change until the part where they were forced to ban wheat exports

>>2170249

Yeah I'd say it's significant enough to be of concern

And not just to little Pacific islands or Bangladesh. Pic related

>>1721289

>And the starving children? Hell, the "poor" countries that climate change is supposed to harm would be harmed even more

Bullshit. Got any numbers to back up that view?

>Stop thinking of the fishies in the ocean, and start thinking about humanity, for goodness sake.

I love the fact that we have all kinds of cool creatures living in our oceans. If I have kids, I hope they will be able to see them at least in documentaries and aquariums. But let's pretend for a second that the "fishies" have zero intrinsic values, and merely exist to satisfy human desires.

At the current rate of overfishing, we can expect to see the extinction of all human-edible fish by 2048. The the current rate of ocean acidification, we'll see a mass extinction of calcifying organisms well under way by 2100.

Let's say you don't give a shit about fisheries, tourism, medical research, or any number of different economic activities benefiting from healthy oceans. Phytoplankton depletion is occurring at 1% per annum. I should remind you that the majority of the world's oxygen is generated by phytoplankton.

>Stop being a pathetic wishful-thinker, and start being pragmatic.

Pragmatism my asshole. What's real wishful thinking is believing that we have any real choice other than self-preservation. While I disagree with Obama on many different things, he was quite right when he said "the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline."

>>1708915

You could have saved face by not posting in this thread again, yet you chose to continue posting anyway. Curious.

>>1708887

>doom and gloom predictions constantly end up being proven false

That's right, those damn scientists making shit up about how three one-in-one thousand year events could happen in a single year as 17 national heat records are broken and hundreds of thousands die in 2010, far earlier than anyone expected to see serious climate change impacts.

Oh wait.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ohx/?n=may2010epicfloodevent
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperatures-world
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/news/extremeweathersequence_en.html
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2010july/
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/moscow-doesnt-believe-in-this.html

>>1657821

Space exploration is cool, useful at times, generates knowledge, and benefits future generations, but "green" tech is pretty much a necessity at this point and benefits future generations much more. We need to start thinking about how we've going to avoid shit like this.