[Graeme]

Six Degrees: our future on a hotter planet

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ark Lynas is, along with George Monbiot and Bill McKibben, the best writer about global warming working today. In Six Degrees, he does something so obvious and so necessary it is hard to believe nobody has done it before. He pores through the peer-reviewed scientific literature and describes, calmly and plainly, what scientists say will happen on earth as each degree of global warming occurs.

And at six degrees - the IPCC's higher-end predictions for this century - humanity enters its endgame. "An entirely new planet comes into being - one unrecognisable from the Earth we know today," Lynas writes. The rainforests are gone, the world's ice supplies are only a memory, the seas are encroaching, and inland cities see temperatures ten degrees higher than today. In the world's major crop-growing areas - India, Australia, the inland United States - most crops are dying, and mass starvation is a perennial risk.

It becomes likely that the vast stores of methane lodged on sub-ocean shelves will bubble to the surface. Since methane is highly flammable, these could quickly be sparked - by lightning, or through human action - into vast fireballs tearing across the sky. The chemical engineer Gregory Ryskin calculates that this methane "could destroy terrestrial life almost entirely", with a major oceanic methane eruption having a force 10,000 times greater than the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

[eric_b]

Well.. that paints a lovely picture, doesn't it.

[Madpaddy]

Well,

My wife always said my methane emissions would be the death of me so methane was going to wipe me out anyway.

Farty on.

[gg3]

If I'm not mistaken, the present scientific consensus says we're heading for about + 2.4 degrees C, is that right?

And what does the world look like at that point?

And how many more years of inaction would it take to get to a scenario where +5 C is more likely?

Somehow I think that before we get quite that far, other negative feedback systems will kick in, notably disease.

All so humans can drive living rooms, have live circus on their walls, and run around indoors in January wearing nothing but their underwear.

Most of our species frankly deserves it.

[Harlequin]

Bleh, we deserve the blistering soil of the grave, our stupidity is the justification for our death.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'S')omehow I think that before we get quite that far, other negative feedback systems will kick in, notably disease.

[Chaparral]

gg3, this is what James Lovelock has been saying and why I always seem to sound like a broken record saying "if Lovelock is right..blah blah". It has been this perspective with which I've approached our meetings and discussions. I think everyone in the group who can, should be familiar with this scenario.

[KhanCEO]

I'm going to laugh if that happens. I know it sounds wrong , however it is too funny that the human race turned the planet into hell on earth by mistake. LOL idiots!

Then again this six degress stuff could all be a hoax to scare people into supporting the carbon tax.

[Ayame]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Harlequin', 'o')ur stupidity is the justification for our death.

[vision-master]

Jesus will save us.

[essex]

Follow the link at the top of this page to a BBC documentary which is getting millions of hits .
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'F')ollow the link at the top of this page to a BBC documentary which is getting millions of hits .
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'F')ollow the link at the top of this page to a BBC documentary which is getting millions of hits .
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/

[essex]

Ah, the perfect defensive tactic of the moron, personal abuse.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'A')h, the perfect defensive tactic of the moron, personal abuse.

[Commanding_Heights]

Maybe another doomer mentioned this and I missed it, but isn't it a bit ironic that peak oil may solve the whole global warming problem?

declining availability
wars
famine
disease
die-off

Would a hard crash solve the problem in a very quick way? Or am I missing something and William Stanley Jevons would argue that a die-off (in a sense) would be an increase the efficiency.

Another question I have (and something I'm much uninformed about) is, if we stopped or drastically reduced all emissions tomorrow would/could and how quickly would global warming reverse itself?

[essex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('essex', 'A')h, the perfect defensive tactic of the moron, personal abuse.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Commanding_Heights', 'M')aybe another doomer mentioned this and I missed it, but isn't it a bit ironic that peak oil may solve the whole global warming problem?

[oowolf]

Is this book going to be sold only in UK for 6 months, like Lovelock's Revenge of Gaia??? I can't find a US seller.

[Graeme]

It seems that it is possible to buy this book from the UK amazon web site, but you would have to check with your customs to find out how much import duty you would have to pay. There is likely to be a delivery charge too.