[Revi]

It's never too late to save the planet. We are living on it. The "tipping point" is always here. I think a lot of people use this as an excuse not to do anything. "The place is trashed anyway, so why do anything?"

I don't care if it is trashed. It's time to clean it up. We can all make some difference, and then we feel like we're not just part of the problem, we're part of the solution.

Psychologically we need to feel that what we do matters. This matters. Talk is cheap. Time for action.

We reduced our carbon footprint by half in the past 5 years.

We aren't rich. Anyone can do this.

[ohanian]

This is so misleading!

Tim Flannery did not say "we are past the tipping point"

He said "Scientist expects the greenhouse gas to be at a particular level at 2015 but actually found that level at 2005 which is 10 years earlier than expected".



http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g1JS ... AD8S5RGS02

Flannery, whose recent book "The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth," made best-seller lists worldwide, said the data showed that the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions had reached about 455 parts per million by mid-2005, well ahead of scientists' previous calculations.

"We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade, that we had that much time," Flannery said. "I mean, that's beyond the limits of projection, beyond the worst-case scenario as we thought of it in 2001," when the last major IPCC report was issued.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I')t's never too late to save the planet. We are living on it. The "tipping point" is always here. I think a lot of people use this as an excuse not to do anything. "The place is trashed anyway, so why do anything?"

I don't care if it is trashed. It's time to clean it up. We can all make some difference, and then we feel like we're not just part of the problem, we're part of the solution.

Psychologically we need to feel that what we do matters. This matters. Talk is cheap. Time for action.

We reduced our carbon footprint by half in the past 5 years.

We aren't rich. Anyone can do this.

[ohanian]

[url=http://www.abc.net.au/science/future/[/url]
We are the FutureEaters
We are running out of Future
Soon we shall have no Future!
Damnit! Who took away my Future?

[dohboi]

''We thought we'd be at that threshold within about a decade,'' Flannery told ABC. ''We thought we had that much time, but the new data indicates that in about mid-2005, we crossed that threshold.''

One point--isn't this about the time many think PO (or at least peak light crude) happened? 2005 has shaped up to be quite the year in the history of modern civilization, and perhaps in the history of life.

As ohanian rightly pointed out, Flannery himself did not use the term "tipping point," but 450 ppb has been widely circulated now as a level we need to stay below to keep a number of really bad things from happening, so I don't think it is too much of a stretch to use it here.

These levels should actually not be too surprising, given earlier indications that, after rising at about 1% per year, CO2 levels started climbing at 3+% per year starting around 2000. That's the power of compound interest working for you!

As I have said elsewhere, hope and optimism cannot be the basis of our care for the earth. Hospice workers do not abuse their patients just because they are terminal. Stopping our abusive relationship to the earth and to the future is a moral imperative, whether we can "save" it and ourselves or not.

And thanks for the "Future Eaters" thing, ohanian. I'm always looking for good, strong metaphors to get across the gravity of our situation.

[Bas]

I think the term "tipping point" is misleading in this context.

It implies that it can be calculated exactly, when in fact we have great trouble doing so: the last couple of years have been full of reports about scientists being stunned about how fast everything is going, implying we reached an invisible tipping point, maybe decades ago; there is quite a delay between CO2 emissions and actual warming, so maybe we reached high enough levels in say, 1980 to start unstoppable climate change 25 years later...

Pretty much all my life I believed that climate change was unstoppable, never really having contemplated that anything would be done about it until we felt the effects of it; I took and take the "tipping point" as something irrelevant, more or less as a symbolic moment at which climate change is becoming visible as it is now, not a scientific moment.

I think it's more important also to watch for tipping points in local climates; the world's climate is a system of more or less local systems. Some of these systems may remain steady for a long time to come, others, most dramatically the arctic local climate at this moment, are losing their long time steady state as we speak. Ofcourse, destabilized local climates will affect bordering local climates in predictable and unpredictable ways, and it in time such changes might rip through the global climate system like falling dominoes in which some dominoes might take longer to fall than others.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', ' ')the last couple of years have been full of reports about scientists being stunned about how fast everything is going, implying we reached an invisible tipping point, maybe decades ago;

[Revi]

We live in a place that is going over the edge. We all know that. All I was saying is that we can still do something about it, personally. We don't have to be adding to the problem of global warming. We don't drive hummers or suburbans because we don't want to add to the problem, not just because we can't afford them. It's a moral choice as one of the earlier posters said. The climate change issue is every bit as important as saving the world from the Axis was in the last century.

We have to make a stand, make the change. Start now!

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'W')e have to make a stand, make the change. Start now!

[Ferretlover]

SUVs? HHmm.. Could it be that people buy them thinking they might as well 'blow it' since they won't be able to drive them for very long, and maybe, with the market the way it is, they may not have to finnish paying for them?
Or, has the number of incredibly stupid people just increased?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') I think a lot of people use this as an excuse not to do anything. "The place is trashed anyway, so why do anything?

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ferretlover', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', ' ')the last couple of years have been full of reports about scientists being stunned about how fast everything is going, implying we reached an invisible tipping point, maybe decades ago;

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Revi', 'I') I think a lot of people use this as an excuse not to do anything. "The place is trashed anyway, so why do anything?

[Ludi]

It's true our politics have rarely dealt with long-term problems, that's why this needs to be addressed culturally, not politically, for our children's children's children's sake (if we give a rat's ass about them!). People in other cultures have tried to deal with issues on a long timescale, there's nothing inherant in the human brain that makes that impossible, merely difficult.


The chick is from our recent hatching.


Folks taking the long term view

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I')t's true our politics have rarely dealt with long-term problems, that's why this needs to be addressed culturally, not politically, for our children's children's children's sake (if we give a rat's ass about them!). People in other cultures have tried to deal with issues on a long timescale, there's nothing inherant in the human brain that makes that impossible, merely difficult.


The chick is from our recent hatching.


Folks taking the long term view

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', 'I') have to wonder though, how do you address something culturally?

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', ' ')disastrous global climate change and only that can and will teach us that lesson, and it will be the most important lesson we've ever learned or will ever learn

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')All above suggest that we, means survivors, will learn nothing.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')All above suggest that we, means survivors, will learn nothing.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', ' ')disastrous global climate change and only that can and will teach us that lesson, and it will be the most important lesson we've ever learned or will ever learn