Vocal Voices

But it is interesting to see exactly how long the United Nations have been predicting climate apocalypse, and how far out their predictions have been.

https://order-order.com/page/4/

Also in the 1980's it was said that the Maldive Islands would be underwater in thirty years.
That would be two years since; and they are still above water.
And people are still saying that in thirty years, the Maldives will be under water....

Yes but you do have to look at the conditions for the predictions. They all say "if we do nothing". But, in fact, we have not done nothing. Even the US is neutral on CO2 growth. Certainly China and India are on a stratospheric CO2 growth, but the larger part of the industrialised world has either halted CO2 growth or reduced CO2 emissions.

Yes they keep growing. But nothing like what they could have been without action.

You know IT so I'll put it this way. When 2000 came along and nothing happened, people carped on endlessly about "we spent all that money and nothing happened". My response. "Precisely".

Now it is the climate change's turn. We are taking action, we have turned away from the very worst scenario. Now the catastrophic predictions are either not met or have been moved further down the road. I still say "Precisely".

Because with climate change the danger is far from over. We have pushed the worst away and given ourselves some time to breathe. But nothing more. Yes we have also learned some things on the way like Global sea level rise is patchy and also depends on the shape of the ocean bed and that levels don't just rise everywhere at once. We also learned that the atmosphere can, in one year, suck up as much as 4mm of sea level rise. But what goes up will come down. Sometimes catastrophically and often over a period of years.

With our actions we have managed to push away the worst for now. But with population growth and a lack of continuing reductions in CO2, the worst is the hammer still waiting there to fall. Hence you heard 30 years before and you hear 30 years now. The glide path to destruction has changed because we stopped driving over the cliff. But we're still heading for the sea and we're still going to drown unless we change the road.

These are not messages you get in the press and by the time the politicians have massaged the science findings you won't find it there either. It doesn't change the truth, just hides it.

The article is no only mischievous it is disingenuous.

I was an interested watcher when many of those predictions mentioned as throw-away remarks by Guido were made.

They were not of the BOOM Greenland has melted, BOOM the Himalayan glaciers have gone or BOOM the Maldives are under two fathoms of water, sort. They were more like pointers to potential start dates for events likely to last years, decades or even centuries; and they were largely correct.

Global temperatures have risen almost 1°C since the 1970s. World wide, glaciers have retreated - search out images "Glaciers then and now". Sea levels have risen on average some 4" (10cm) since 1970, the seas and ocean have peaks and troughs due to gravitational anomalies so some places have seen greater rises than others, but the rise is there. All these are not models, they are actual, and we have worked to keep them to those levels.

Today we are like the frog in a pan of gently heating water. "It could do with heating up". "Ah, a bit of warmth, getting better". "Almost there". "Now that's nice, very nice". Hmm, a bit too warm". "Man those bubbles burn". "Oh God! Turn it off!".

We have only had the stove on for a few minutes and we are well past the 'nice, very nice' bit.

Workingman wrote:We have only had the stove on for a few minutes and we are well past the 'nice, very nice' bit.

Ah, yes, but the "Oh god turn it off" will be met with "It'll take 200-300 years, suck it up".