A breathtaking slideshow.

Not only for the incredible scenery and the views, but also for the scale of what is shown. A quick glance by the ignorant might just show a 'pretty picture'. Play the slideshow a second time to notice the very different 'tide' marks of the ice flows. The large scale and the very rapid change for something that should be 'glacial' in timescale is hard to appreciate...


Rivers of ice: Vanishing glaciers

Stunning images from high in the Himalayas - showing the extent by which many glaciers have shrunk in the past 80 years or so - have gone on display at the Royal Geographical Society in central London.

Between 2007 and 2010, David Breashears retraced the steps of early photographic pioneers such as Major E O Wheeler, George Mallory and Vittorio Sella - to try to re-take their views of breathtaking glacial vistas.


The significance runs far far deeper than just a few views. The almost constant fresh water supply for large parts of India and China that has flowed steadily for thousands of years is now changing over just a few years to flood and drought.

This is happening now.

And this is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
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Very very interesting, abd beautiful

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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues

....

The rapid CO2 increase isn't natural.

Changes are being wrought, on a world-wide scale, very quickly... There are consequences to doing that.

I am not the only person waiting for you to produce the percentage of CO2 which produces the optimum world climate.

Is it a secret number?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

...
One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!

What is the percentage of CO2 needed to produce the optimal global climate?

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Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

The population explosion continues... Until...

Until it peaks in 2060 and begins declining according to all population projections.

About that CO2 percentage ...

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

An apt quote from an author from quite a few years ago now:


Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a
generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the
pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of
annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder
year than I've ever known." Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom
alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is
precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet.
They must learn climate.

-- Arrakis, the Transformation, After Harq al-Ada


For that example, the climate was transformed overnight. Many people died in the surrounding events...

That is just a story, but there are parallels...

The parallel is both it and your stories are science fiction. The difference is Arrakis is good fiction.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

...
One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!

What is the percentage of CO2 needed to produce the optimal global climate?

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

---

I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

According to the world of Matt-G: That is only of interest for how comfortable he is in his own back yard. The rest of the world can be damned...


This is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

...
One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!

What is the percentage of CO2 needed to produce the optimal global climate?

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

Ah, yes, optimal would be warm enough for trees to grow at the poles.

---

...
One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!

What is the percentage of CO2 needed to produce the optimal global climate?

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

Why? Were the melters not infused with the knowledge that warmer is globally worse? If not what are they whining about?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
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The origin of the Yahweh Cult

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

According to the world of Matt-G: That is only of interest for how comfortable he is in his own back yard. The rest of the world can be damned...

So what is the percentage? You 'know' warmer is worse. Therefore you know colder is better.

You have weather records going back a century and a half.

Why cannot you provide a number?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

...
One big and long time consequence is that our excess CO2 dumped into our atmosphere is set to stay there for well over a century, and we are adding yet more to that total!

What is the percentage of CO2 needed to produce the optimal global climate?

I'd imagine one would first have to explain what is meant by optimal before a meaningful answer can be provided.

Ah, yes, optimal would be warm enough for trees to grow at the poles.

Wouldn't be the first time.

BUT, how much colder than today is better and what CO2 percentage corresponds to that amount colder. One would have expected after billions of dollars over more than two decades someone would have produced the number.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
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The origin of the Yahweh Cult

So what is the percentage? You 'know' warmer is worse. Therefore you know colder is better. ...

So this is yet another of your facetious word games...

The issue is not one of 'warmer' or 'colder' or 'optimum'. What is far more important is climate stability and the rate of change from that.

We have enjoyed and prospered from a few thousand years of stability and very gentle climate change. The world's ecosystems have stabilised the climate, and with enough margin to accommodate natural fluctuations from the small changes from such as el nino - la nina, volcanoes, and the solar cycle.

Mankind has now developed industrialisation on a vast and global scale that is creating an ever greater imbalance and ever more quickly. That is causing very rapid change. We are directly measuring that. We can see that all around us. We can see directly how we are forcing that change.

The biggest problem is that all this is nothing new. Hence, we are drifting into a calamity of procrastination... And a political game of brinkmanship of who makes the first move to do something... Or of something too late...


Meanwhile, the best you can do is chase ephemeral games of words just to score a few points of geriatric cantankerousness.

Indeed, Nero plays whilst the world burns.


This is our only one world, for EVERYONE,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Martin: Are you prepared for the answer for the optimum being a temperature where humans can not survive in large numbers? Or is your optimum, optimum for humans, the rest of the planet be damned?

---

Martin: Are you prepared for the answer for the optimum being a temperature where humans can not survive in large numbers? Or is your optimum, optimum for humans, the rest of the planet be damned?

Hypothesising on an 'optimum' is not going to work. More important is that we keep the rate of environmental change to something reasonably survivable.

At our continued exponential growth, Mankind is guaranteed to outstrip one or more resources of the planet. Or poison the climate and the ecosphere with pollution. The question is how we approach that. Or whether we can avoid hitting the limits in first place.


Do we gently limit our growth for ourselves and keep within sustainability? Or do we blithely smash into a planetary resource limit and collapse in calamity?

Or do we procrastinate until we deny ourselves any chance of any managed choice?


This is our only one planet...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

A breathtaking slideshow.

Not only for the incredible scenery and the views, but also for the scale of what is shown. A quick glance by the ignorant might just show a 'pretty picture'. Play the slideshow a second time to notice the very different 'tide' marks of the ice flows. The large scale and the very rapid change for something that should be 'glacial' in timescale is hard to appreciate...


Rivers of ice: Vanishing glaciers

Stunning images from high in the Himalayas - showing the extent by which many glaciers have shrunk in the past 80 years or so - have gone on display at the Royal Geographical Society in central London. ...

There's been some follow-on talks:

physicsworld.com: ‘A different planet’

This Tuesday I was in London meeting some exciting and important people in science. ... I went along to the closing lecture at Royal Society’s paleoclimate conference Warm Climates of the Past – a Lesson for the Future?. The lecture was given by Dr James Hansen – the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has been very vocal on the subject of climate change since the 1980s.

In “Earth’s climate history: lessons for the future” Hansen spoke about how observations of past climates coupled with current-day observations suggest that hard-hitting and immediate measures need to be put in place to avoid further global destruction. Rapid reductions in the use of fossil fuels are the best way to do so, he argued.

Hansen began his talk by saying that our basic understanding of the Earth’s paleoclimate history should depend more on global “real-world” geological observations, ...

Hansen went on to say that when some generally “intelligent people” say that the Earth has been a lot colder or warmer in the past, he is quick to point out that he doesn’t think that the global mean temperature was ever more than a degree higher, as far back as the last glacial period.

He categorized the three main factors affecting the global climate over the past 65 million years and presented the amount of warming change they would cause in Watts/m2:

* external effects (solar irradiance): +1 W/m2

* surface effects (continental location – geological changes): ~1 W/m2

* atmosphere (CO2 change): >10 W/m2

He pointed out that the natural change in CO2 has been steady at about 0.0001 ppm/year, whereas the human-generated rate today is at about 2 ppm/year. He also showed that the sea level has been rising at about 3 m per millennium, as compared with the near-constant level it has maintained for the past 6000–7000 years. His hard-hitting statement that “Humans could produce ‘a different planet’” makes it clear that he feels very strong measures need to be put in place to preserve the planet as we know it. ...



This is happening now.

And this is our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Martin: Are you prepared for the answer for the optimum being a temperature where humans can not survive in large numbers? Or is your optimum, optimum for humans, the rest of the planet be damned?

Hypothesising on an 'optimum' is not going to work. More important is that we keep the rate of environmental change to something reasonably survivable.

At our continued exponential growth, Mankind is guaranteed to outstrip one or more resources of the planet. Or poison the climate and the ecosphere with pollution. The question is how we approach that. Or whether we can avoid hitting the limits in first place.


Do we gently limit our growth for ourselves and keep within sustainability? Or do we blithely smash into a planetary resource limit and collapse in calamity?

Or do we procrastinate until we deny ourselves any chance of any managed choice?


This is our only one planet...
Martin

Optimum may be for man to kill himself off as fast as possible so all other things on this planet have a chance survive.

---

So what is the percentage? You 'know' warmer is worse. Therefore you know colder is better. ...

So this is yet another of your facetious word games...

How is it a word game to expect you to quantify the terms you are using?

The issue is not one of 'warmer' or 'colder' or 'optimum'. What is far more important is climate stability and the rate of change from that.

How do you quantify stability? What is the optimal amount? What is the optimal rate of change?

We have enjoyed and prospered from a few thousand years of stability and very gentle climate change.

There is a technical term for that statement. That term is bullshit. Gentle is not quantifiable. What changes is not stable. The only available records indicate prosperity is proportional to temperature.

The world's ecosystems have stabilised the climate, and with enough margin to accommodate natural fluctuations from the small changes from such as el nino - la nina, volcanoes, and the solar cycle.

Mankind has now developed industrialisation on a vast and global scale that is creating an ever greater imbalance and ever more quickly. That is causing very rapid change. We are directly measuring that. We can see that all around us. We can see directly how we are forcing that change.

The biggest problem is that all this is nothing new. Hence, we are drifting into a calamity of procrastination... And a political game of brinkmanship of who makes the first move to do something... Or of something too late...

Meanwhile, the best you can do is chase ephemeral games of words just to score a few points of geriatric cantankerousness.

Indeed, Nero plays whilst the world burns.

To summarize, you are on an ego boost pretending to save the world from itself while being totally ignorant of the science and without a single quantifiable goal or objective. But knowing prosperity is proportional to temperature you are against temperature increase because it is caused by evil windmills.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

Martin: Are you prepared for the answer for the optimum being a temperature where humans can not survive in large numbers? Or is your optimum, optimum for humans, the rest of the planet be damned?

Hypothesising on an 'optimum' is not going to work. More important is that we keep the rate of environmental change to something reasonably survivable.

OK, forget optimum. Exactly what percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is your target?

If you do not have a number you have nothing.

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult

He pointed out that the natural change in CO2 has been steady at about 0.0001 ppm/year, whereas the human-generated rate today is at about 2 ppm/year. He also showed that the sea level has been rising at about 3 m per millennium, as compared with the near-constant level it has maintained for the past 6000–7000 years. His hard-hitting statement that “Humans could produce ‘a different planet’” makes it clear that he feels very strong measures need to be put in place to preserve the planet as we know it. ...[/i]

Exactly how much CO2 did he say is the correct amount?

What do you mean he didn't? Doesn't he know?

---

Unvarnished
Haaretz
Jerusalem Post
The origin of the Yahweh Cult