Vocal Voices

British charity, Christian Aid, says that rising sea levels will hit over one billion people by 2060. Main areas will be the Indian sub-continent and Florida in the US. Cities such as Miami, Kolkata, Mumbai and Dakar will be the most at risk.

This report comes hard on the heels of another by Environmental Research Letters showing that five islands in the Solomon Islands Archipelago have disappeared, six others have had swathes of land overrun by the sea and a further 22 are at serious risk of inundation.

Christian Aid's forecast of 2060 looks optimistic and could well be brought forward a decade or two.

On the other side of the coin comes India's proposal to divert rivers such as the Bramaputra and Ganges to reduce problems with year-on-year drought. The issue there is that many large rivers in S.E. Asia are suffering low water but high pollution levels. These rivers include the Bramaputra and Ganges, the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China and the Mekong in Vietnam.

Another problem for India is that in the Punjab, the food basket, wells needed to irrigate wheat and rice crops are now having to be dug many metres deep, in some places over 100 metres, to reach the aquifer. And over in the US the Ogallala aquifer could run dry as early as 2028. That would impact on world food production and also the lives of some 2.5 million people who rely on it for drinking water.

Water management of the resources in the US is a big issue too, just look at the political bunfight over the Colorado river water rights right now.

Within a few decades, or century end, one of the best climates to grow wheat will be up in Northern Canada.

Given that sea level rise is still running at around 3.5mm per year or 3.5cm per decade, those pacific islands sitting 6" above sea level are toast in 30 years even without the storms....

I was listening to the adverts on the radio with Christian Aid and they were extolling us to give them funds to put the houses of these poor flooded Bangla's up on stilts so they can ride out the storms.

Reality says, "what's the point"? In 30 to 40 years they will be driven out because every high tide is going to inundate their ground. If they can't farm, they can't live. So they will move.

We're supposed to be reducing our world CO2 output. Yet this last El Nino we recorded the highest ever rise in CO2 (globally), in one year, ever recorded before. If any of the CO2 abatement schemes (wind power, crappy light bulbs, etc..), were working, then we would have seen the peak slightly lower than 1998. Not above it.

You can't mitigate the impact of climate by trying to build above it. Eventually you can't grow food and then you move or die.

The only thing that can be done to stop this is to stop emitting CO2. Right so now that we've decided we're not going to do that, we need to decide what we can do for those who are impacted...

I have just seen the latest from NASA - April was the seventh month on a row to break global temperature records and that makes it three months on a row with the largest margin ever.

And what do we do?

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change said:

All of these record breaking temperatures and attendant implications that we have had, such as record breaking fires for example, and droughts in India are all reminders that we cannot afford to do anything except to accelerate the solution agenda - we absolutely have no other option but to accelerate.

Excuse me Mr UN, but that solution agenda we have to accelerate is what, exactly?

Just read a _very_ interesting response to a post on a climate forum. To the point that the major nuclear powers (except the UK and France) are all gearing up their Nuclear capabilities beyond cold war levels (not sure that's true and would need verification).

However the postulation was that a surgical strike now, with known consequences, might be better than to just let the world fall apart. In which there is no way to control the impact and no way to know if those who "should" survive, will survive....

Interesting point of view and something to look into.

It is rather disturbing that anybody, anywhere, would postulate nuclear conflict as a way of saving the environment, but to hear it from a climate site is scary.

Besides, surgical strikes are not really an option any more. Too many countries have too many nuclear warheads for one to work. Even a strike against N. Korea would prompt the Chinese to wonder where that came from and lob one back.

I'm going to check it out because I've been seeing a few funny bits and pieces recently.

I don't expect to get too far before finding it's just a paranoia. But, then again, I once felt that way about 9/11....

If you think about it, if someone was willing to do this, they don't care about the rest of us. Plus, if you think about it, nuclear winter and 200 years to clear most of the mess, could, in some warped mind, be seen as a viable end result. Given that the climate lobby are saying that climate change could destroy 75% of the human population and take 15,000 years to fix. Barring some sort of total catastrophe.

How much to you trust your fellow trillionaire or fellow politician????

I'd be surprised if I find anything. But, then again, I won't be amazed that people can think that if I do...

It does bring a little humour to the "Trump for President" campaign though doesn't it? Or is that exactly what someone wants? Which would be a darker though. In the first instance it would not matter if we have a totally barking mad president in the US. In the second instance it might be just what someone needs.

This should be a philosophy thread.... Or just a completely second guessing convoluted one.

Anyway enough of this maundering. I'm much more concerned with the number of large and totally undetected asteroids which have either hit the atmosphere or just missed the planet in very recent years. We're in a shooting gallery and we're wandering about blind.

To drag this off conspiracy and back onto the whole climate bit...

Here is the Arctic in 2012. Resolution is a bit low as the satellite in use was fairly old..



Now try 2016.



2012 is the current record holder for greatest melt and lowest arctic ice...

Of course 2011 was lower at this time of year. I'm betting on 2017 being the seriously huge news. But it doesn't rule out 2016 being something special.

It tends to run in 5 year cycles. Recently it's been 2006/7 2011/12 I'm betting on a 2016/17 combination.

Perhaps that will lift people out of their seats...

Or not.

Back to a conspiracy...

There are those who think that the invasion of Europe by "migrants" is no accident. That the UN want to crash European countries by inundating them with migrants beyond the ability of any country's economy to cope with them, so that said countries become more receptive to the idea of a world government, the UN.

If that were the case (and yes, it's probably fantasy) I'd back dropping the bomb if it kept Europe Europe.

In the days of Lords and Kings and Emperors, Empires and countries died in a huge bang of war.

In a Democracy they are more likely to die with a whimper...

Anyway, it's just a few decades earlier. The world, as it is constituted today, cannot survive the climate that is coming. All those who are desperate to leave Africa will probably have a better chance, in 5 or 6 decades time, trying to tough it out in Africa than the wholesale mayhem which will descend on the Western worlds.

It's funny you know how few people take on board "50% of our food comes in from abroad".

And when "abroad" can't produce enough food any more??? What happens to the 50% who can't afford the prices of the only food that can get through?

Global Warming is not just something which is going to happen "over there". It's going to happen "over here" too. So if we add another 40 million people, wind up with 25% of our food being produced at home, then when that food stops coming (and there is nothing surer than that the harvests are going to fail in 30 - 40 years time, if not sooner), then what????

It's not rocket science. It's simply maths and science. A sustainable biosphere is 350ppm CO2. We peaked over 400 last year (it peaks and troughs each year). We will exceed 400ppm for the next few hundred or thousand years in 2017.

It really is not hard to work out. 350.org will tell you all about it. But their job gets harder every year. When they started it was about 385ppm and 350 looked viable....

I thought about global warming last week, when staying at a hotel in Liverpool, near the docks.
From the window of our room I was looking down on a road having four lanes in both directions,
all being used. I thought to myself that, if this is typical of modern life all over the planet, what
hope is there for future generations. As I see it, the only hope for the human race is to go back
to the way of living that was in vogue when I was young. What a hope!