Climate Change -- 11,000 years a large enough sample size?

[jitahs]

Recent heat spike unlike anything in 11,000 years - SFGate

[Mabouya]

Good luck with that - folks are still going to want to drive their 17 mpg cars and trucks and set their thermostats to 70* in the summer and 75* in the winter.

Nothing's going to happen until externalities are reflected in the costs of behavior.

Was this posted to smoke out the tree-huggers? ;)

[jitahs]

Oh they'll do what they want, but I'd like for them to do it quietly, wink.

Damn I can hardly get my arms around this Redwood.

[bcm119]

I'm a tree-hugger ready to be smoked out.

[vertical_doug]

Good luck with that - folks are still going to want to drive their 17 mpg cars and trucks and set their thermostats to 70* in the summer and 75* in the winter.

Nothing's going to happen until externalities are reflected in the costs of behavior.

Was this posted to smoke out the tree-huggers? ;)

The U.S. is pretty stable now at around 17% of carbon emissions. The chinese tripled emissions from 2003-2009 and blew by the U.S. in 2007. They are now around 23% of total. The Indians are still only about 6% of total and a younger population. And if we look at continental Africa with 1.2 billion people and less than 2% , there are many places yet to grow. It will take a lot more than turning off the heat and air conditioning. I was told that if the entire human population wants to live at a 1970's U.S. level we need 8 planet earths.

[Mabouya]

The U.S. is pretty stable now at around 17% of carbon emissions. The chinese tripled emissions from 2003-2009 and blew by the U.S. in 2007. They are now around 23% of total. The Indians are still only about 6% of total and a younger population. And if we look at continental Africa with 1.2 billion people and less than 2% , there are many places yet to grow. It will take a lot more than turning off the heat and air conditioning. I was told that if the entire human population wants to live at a 1970's U.S. level we need 8 planet earths.

Well, should we just throw in the towel, or still, each try to do our share? If we could start to show a reduction in per capita emissions it might give our negotiators a better position to lean on the Chinese. (Although that's hardly the only reason to be careful with our resource usage.) What are we going to do when they + India are responsible for 75% (or whatever the huge number will be) of emissions, and the earth is going completely to hell? Just say, "Well, nothing we can do about that..." ?

Until we can replace all those Chinese coal-fired power plants with cold-fusion, it's only going to get worse. (I'm not holding my breath.) And what money are they using to build up their economy that is resulting in the need for all that power? The money we pay them to buy all the cr@p we get at WalMart.

[Veloraptor]

Well, should we just throw in the towel, or still, each try to do our share? If we could start to show a reduction in per capita emissions it might give our negotiators a better position to lean on the Chinese. (Although that's hardly the only reason to be careful with our resource usage.) What are we going to do when they + India are responsible for 75% (or whatever the huge number will be) of emissions, and the earth is going completely to hell? Just say, "Well, nothing we can do about that..." ?

Until we can replace all those Chinese coal-fired power plants with cold-fusion, it's only going to get worse. (I'm not holding my breath.) And what money are they using to build up their economy that is resulting in the need for all that power? The money we pay them to buy all the cr@p we get at WalMart.

It would be interesting to come back in 500 years, and see if a human population still exists? Even better would be to put a bunch of the current claims of global warming not being a problem, or not being the result of mans actions in a time capsule. Or better yet those who argue that current corporate profits are more important than dealing with this issue. Gotta consume more, that's the ticket. Consume, consume, consume. Not really much different than what a plague of locusts does. I gotta hug another tree now.

[Dallas Tex]

"Marcott's data indicates that it took 4,000 years for the world to warm about 1.25 degrees from the end of the ice age to about 7,000 years ago. The same fossil-based data suggest a similar level of warming occurring in just one generation: from the 1920s to the 1940s. Actual thermometer records don't show the rise from the 1920s to the 1940s was quite that big and Marcott said for such recent time periods it is better to use actual thermometer readings than his proxies."

Is he saying that actual thermometer records are more accurate than fossil-based data? If yes, help me understand how the fossil records could be accurate enough to determine a 1.25 degree change over 4,000 years?

Maybe I missed it, but does anyone see in the article exactly how many degrees this dramatic heat spike is?

thanks

[jitahs]

Usage rates are learned; seed good patterns of behaviour early (or mandate it) so our space program only is burdened with towing 2-3 dinghies, er planets, back from the far reaches of the galaxy.
Presuming those rafts aren't de-populated marbles previously inhabited by such unique visionaries as ourselves.