Movie Time: The Age of Stupid

[Flyfisher]

I know large areas of Norfolk and Lincs are at risk of flooding but, to be fair, most of those areas have been artificially recovered in the first place. It's always a bit strange driving around fenland with the 'drains' being higher than the roads.

As for places like the Maldives being at risk, I've always wondered about this ever since learning that their islands are formed from "sand" created by the reef fish (mainly parrot fish I believe) chewing up the coral. Seems to me that this dynamic process would result in a fairly constant height above the sea level, and would itself rise along with the sea. It seems to be too much of a pure coincidence for 1000s of Maldivian islands all to be pretty much the same 1-2m above the sea.

Having said that, the coral itself is under threat from rising sea temperatures.

 

[biffvernon]

Yes, apart from the little problem of rehousing BanglaDesh and several of the world's biggest cities, the sea level problem may not be as great as drought.

This is one of the comments in the latest piece on The Oil Drum

I have also been studying geological events like the PETM with great interest. Take a look at this photo of a sediment core spanning the Paleocene Eocene boundary. That red clay streak (~20 cm in this core, 100+ cm in others) represents the near complete absence of foraminafera in the water column extending for several millenia. You'll see few geological epoch boundaries so clearly demarcated.

It may not be much solace, but the PETM seems to be singular in the temperature record. If subsea methane hydrates could easily be catastrophically liberated during a warming episode, one must ask why there wasn't a similar abrupt runaway around 25 Mya, when its speculated that Antarctica thawed.

sea level rise is the absolute killer of global warming

I understand why climate advocates have pushed sea-level rise in their accounts: its easy to understand, corresponds to current disasters, and makes for very visual presentations. But I don't think its the killer, this century at least.

What is the killer (IMHO): drought. The major effect of warming on precipitation patterns is to shift the Hadley cells polewards. Rainfall shifts from current day sub-tropical breadbaskets in India, the European Mediterranean, the American great plains, further north.

A 1m sea-rise arising from a 2^C temperature rise would indeed be dire in a number of low-lying places (Bangladesh, certainly). The same 2^C is expected to reduce agricultural yields in India by 25% (source 2007 Gwynne Dyer lecture), from irrigation shortfalls alone. I don't know if germination failures or crop wilting was considered as well.

This is of course taking place in most of the other breadbaskets simultaneously, so there's no exports available to for famine mitigation. The more I study this, the more I'm convinced we'll starve long before we drown.

 

[Flyfisher]

Who's being pessimistic now?

Unusually, I can inject some optimism here, based on a recent New Scientist article describing the use of nanotube technology for more efficient desalination. I've also read of some success in genetically engineering crops that can tolerate salt water, particularly rice. Perhaps the fens can be converted to paddy fields when things warm up a bit?

 

[yamin]

Never ask a zealot to justify his cause. I am not sure if zealot is insulting, if it is, I'm sorry - a passionate believer may be a better term, but scientific evidence is notoriously difficult to prove impartially, and a passionate believer can never be impartial! This debate is heavily weighed down by those on the 'we are all doomed' side, who have a high interest and have sourced evidence to support their side, and only their side. I am not saying they are not right, but I cannot be convinced without seeing both sides of the argument, and thats not happening here (and I certainly can't provide the other side!). All the journals/articles referenced could be Noddys Guide to the World for all I know about most of their reliablility, and how do you know that these articles/experiments were carried out impartially, that they were blinded or randomised or carried out in any way that wasn't purely to prove their own agenda? This heavy endorsement of the doom and gloom is
1. Putting me off reading any more about it
2. IIs not pointing me in any direction where I can see both sides of the argument presented without emotion and in a way that allows me to make my own mind up

 

[biffvernon]

First, science never 'proves' anything. Proof is a concept useful in mathematics and logic but is not part of science.

Climate science is not an area where you should look for two sides to the argument. There aren't two sides and there isn't an argument. For sure, our understanding has a lot of limitations and different people will have different views about the interpretation of some aspects of the data. There is room for lots of discussion and much more work.

As regards reliability - there's a well trodden path to seeing how the work of a scientist stands up to scrutiny by his/her peers. It's open and pretty honest. You can get involved and get to know who is who in the field quite easily, check their credentials and who they work for and the reputation of their institutions, or you can just take my word for it.

Because the message looks grim does not mean that it is not true.

 

[Penners]

First, science never 'proves' anything.

Oh, come on! Pretty well any empirical proof is science-based. You can prove the existence of gravity mathematically, yes, but you can also drop an apple on your head. That's science. You can prove the existence of electricity by passing a copper coil through a magnetic field. That's science.

Etcetera, etcetera....

 

[Flyfisher]

Good points, Yamin, many of which I could answer with more quotes from Lovelock but I've probably already overdone that. I probably seem like a member of the Lovelock appreciation society but I do believe he's a good source on this whole issue. Not only has a made a pivotal contribution to the science but he's entirely independent. Indeed, he's particularly critical of the IPCC "consensus" approach to reporting the issues; as he rightly says, consensus has no part in science that's for governments and lawyers, yet the IPCC spends a large part of its time coming up with statements and reports that satisfy all the vested interests, including the oil-producing countries. That's politics, not science. Lovelock is not bound by such constraints, which makes him - I think - a good starting point when trying to understand the issues. Actually, the root cause of his pessimism is not really the science, it's the lack of urgency and action over the past 20-30 years. Kyoto (arguably too late anyway) was 10 years ago, yet nothing has really changed since then. It's not that we can't do anything about climate change, it's that we won't. Or, even more pessimistically, we could have done something but now it's too late because we didn't.

Amazon have Lovelock's latest book on offer for £9 (and no, I'm not on commission :wink: ).

 

[biffvernon]

First, science never 'proves' anything.

Oh, come on! Pretty well any empirical proof is science-based. You can prove the existence of gravity mathematically, yes, but you can also drop an apple on your head. That's science. You can prove the existence of electricity by passing a copper coil through a magnetic field. That's science.

Etcetera, etcetera....

Oh no, you can do an experiment with an apple and your head and the observed results are consistent and repeatable and Newton derived some mathematics which were good enough to navigate spacecraft, but that does not prove that gravity exists always, everywhere. It just shows that something operated the last time you dropped an apple.

Einstein demonstrated that Newton's account of gravity was wrong (still good enough to navigate spacecraft but wrong nevertheless).

Now we have observations that spacecraft flying through the solar system are actually deviating, not only from the trajectory predicted by Newton but also from that when the Einsteinian adjustments are made. I read a suggestion just last week that there may be two different forms of gravity, one that acts on leptons and another that acts on baryons. This might explain the discrepancy.

The concept of 'empirical proof' is not helpful. There's proof and there's empirical evidence. Don't try to find a fudge between the two distinct ideas.

 

[Penners]

But if Newton's laws of gravity have been shown not to be universally applicable, then presumably the same is true of the mathematics derived from them. The two are surely inextricably linked.

And if a scientific law is not universally applicable, that doesn't make it wrong in the circumstances where it does apply... does it?

 

[DaveBrigg]

Another Age of Stupid conundrum.
We have a biomass (wood) boiler. No nasty fossil fuels, and installation subsidised by eco department at the government. Last year, seasoned logs were £60 a truck load, supplemented by as much scrap wood as we could carry, with permission, from Scunthorpe.
This year, seasoned logs have sold out, and a truck load of fresh wood is £80. Someone else is taking the scrap wood, without permission, leaving half a load at most. The local sawmill, which used to have a huge pile of waste on sale for firewood has now sold out, and has a waiting list. A local tree surgery company has just increased its annual sale of logs from 350 to 450 tonnes, and instead of only using timber produced during felling operations, they are now buying standing trees to fell for firewood.
I know that Lincolnshire is not well endowed with forests, but it looks like the encouragement to turn from fossil fuels to wood (as well as a spike in the oil price) has made firewood so expensive that hardwood trees will be cut down in even greater numbers. It cannot be long before it is more profitable to sell seasoned oak for fuel rather than as a building material.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:shock: :shock:

If anyone would like to come and chop down some trees here in South Lincs and take them away I'd be very pleased to see the back of them. They render the land good for nowt and in some cases are threatening the buildings.

I have birch, yew, apple, holly and beech in profusion; more wood than we can use. I have a chainsaw and ladders.

PM if interested.

 

[biffvernon]

It cannot be long before it is more profitable to sell seasoned oak for fuel rather than as a building material.

Firewood will clearly track the price of other fuels but there is an enormous difference between the price of firewood and seasoned joinery oak. Bulk prices: £30 per tonne against £30 per cubic foot.

 

[biffvernon]

Oh no, what is it with you, Joce? First the silverfish, now the rest of creation. Do we have to slap TPOs on them?

But back to less important matters, it may have come to folks' notice that there's a little conference going on in Copenhagen yesterday and today. From the mainstream media coverage one might be forgiven for getting a limited impression of hat climate scientists do. A much better impression can be gained from a glance down the list of papers being read at this conference. Look at this http://climatecongress.ku.dk/programme/finalprogramme/

You can watch a lot of the speechyfying from the webcasts at http://climatecongress.ku.dk/

Remember, the biggest threat to period properties is climate change.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh no, what is it with you, Joce? First the silverfish, now the rest of creation. Do we have to slap TPOs on them?

But I want the space for livestock and fruit trees! I'll be doing a lot of replanting too around the boundaries. In many cases I want the trees seriously pruned, which will produce a lot of firewood, rather than felled.

Do I have to live in a weedy wilderness to please you?

 

[DaveBrigg]

Firewood will clearly track the price of other fuels but there is an enormous difference between the price of firewood and seasoned joinery oak. Bulk prices: £30 per tonne against £30 per cubic foot.

I was thinking of the oak trees felled for one of the Grand Designs programmes, I think from the Longleat estate. They were £150 a tree, or £1 for each year of growth. The tree surgeon I listened to yesterday charged £110 for a flat bed Transit load. Of course, as you point out, the trees were green oak, although destined to be made into beams, whereas the firewood has been stored for at least 10 months.
From the perspective of my guilty conscience, we get through a minimum of at least one substantial tree a year. For this to be sustainable in the long term we would need to plant an oak or similar every year (assuming they all survived). After two hundred years there would be a perfect equilibrium, but how many acres of land would be taken up to achieve it?

 

[DaveBrigg]

Duplicated post.

By the way, how much wood is a tonne? Do you know of someone who can deliver in bulk? :wink:

 

[biffvernon]

We're actually growing more timber than we are cutting down in the British Isles and much of Europe.

When an oak tree is cut down, only part of it is any use for building and furniture - the rest is sensibly used for firewood.

 

[Penners]

When an oak tree is cut down, only part of it is any use for building and furniture - the rest is sensibly used for firewood.

And this is true for pretty well any commercially grown tree. You simply can't use an entire tree for making things, because nature insists on growing the damn things round - a very inefficient shape fro producing what mankind uses most - rectangular sections.

And of course there are all those ridiculously bent branches, which aren't much good for anything, except (in certain cases) crucks and knees for nice old-fashioned houses.

So there are lots of what the timber conversion industry refers to as "falling pieces" or "slabwood", that - as Biff says - is best used for burning.

 

[worms]

Well, what was the verdict?

I saw the northernmost showing (160 seats filled out of a possible 203). I thought the film was pretty good but not as hard-hitting as I was expecting. Somehow I was struck more by Inconvenient Truth than I was by this one. I grudgingly have to admire the way Ed Milliband handled what was a very awkward situation for him. I also felt that putting all the political emphasis at the end of the night solely on the Kingsnorth (or whatever) Coal Power Station kind of put the whole thing off on a tangent.

 

[biffvernon]

The film premiered a few hours ago - the biggest simultaneous premier ever. Brilliant film - go watch it tomorrow if you missed it tonight. There's lots to watch on the Internet from the Leicester Square showing, including the post-film discussion during which Energy Secretary Ed Milliband was put firmly on the spot and left spluttering nonsense about clean coal and Peter Postlethwaite vowed to handing back his OBE if the government approved the coal fired power station at Kingsnorth.

Watch at http://live.ageofstupid.net/

The sign up to join the campaign at http://www.notstupid.org/ where you can also see President Nasheed of the Maldives' statement.

What to do? We have 266 days to make sure our government does the right thing a Copenhagen. These next 266 days are what will make all the difference for our children's survival and their ability to care for our Period Properties.

Sorry, Worms, but not burning the coal is the single biggest issue. This is the big one and has to come first above all else. If we burn the coal we are toast. If we don't humanity still has a chance of survival. You can forget about everything else if campaign to stop the coal burn.