What are we doing, people?

[peoli]

6. Much of global warming is irreversible and will continue for centuries. In the most somber part of the report, the IPCC provides a truly geological perspective on the changes that we are causing. It notes that much of what we are doing to the planet is "irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale" and that temperatures will remain "at elevated levels for many centuries," even if we completely stop emitting carbon dioxide. Indeed, the report states, much of the carbon dioxide that we've emitted "will remain in the atmosphere longer than 1,000 years."


http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/09/ipcc-climate-report-scary-conclusions


What are we doing, people?

[Katashi_itto]

1. Dying.

[tavalon]

8. Not much to add to that

I feel sorry for our non happening ancestors. It's time to pass it on. Unfortunately we will take most of the species with us. But Mother Gaia will survive and will continue on in geologic terms. This will pass and Earth will recover. Earthlings won't.

[Downwinder]

2. I'm 72, I plan to evacuate. MS and heat don't go well together.

[silvershadow]

4. Tell me about it. I have MS, and I'm heat-sensitive. These hot days we've been having have been

brutal.

[Downwinder]

5. Each summer seems progressively worse since 2005.

[silvershadow]

6. I live in Indiana, and several years ago I knew we were in trouble when the fall temps stayed in the

60's through mid-December. It was about 1995 when I first noticed the changing weather. We had an unbelievable amount of rain for a day or two. I believe it rained for a whole day straight, and it was just incredible amounts of water. I had never in my life seen it come down that hard. I remember it to this day, and it was the first real indicator I had that things were changing. And you are right, it is getting progressively worse. At this point, I only hope I am dead before the really bad stuff starts, but I'm not so sure I will be.

[Downwinder]

7. As the handle indicates, I leave a $50K inheritance if I get cancer of

a major organ. I just have to hang on until that point.

The only problem is a Dutch study shows a reduced incidence of cancer with MS.

Did you notice a little invigoration when the Fukushima cloud came over?

[silvershadow]

14. Not really. But I do get more pain with weather events, especially changing pressure. nt

[B Calm]

9. I live behind the Hoosier Iron Curtain too. I remember that rain.

Looking out my picture window I saw water going over the bridge on my country road and then the bridge washed away. Took the republican county 3 years to replace the bridge!

[Mojorabbit]

15. I have MS also and feel like a prisoner indoors every summer.

The heat just takes it all out of me. I am so looking forward to signs of fall so I can go out and play.

[Downwinder]

17. I grew up in Arizona and I love the heat. It just does not

like me anymore. The sun this summer felt like a physical force like a strong wind that was trying to knock me down.

One or two degrees might not seem much to deniers, but I can feel every degree. I can't afford to air condition this place, maybe I can get a refrigerator that I can get inside with a computer. Hibernate for the summer.

Today it rained and did not get out of the 80s. Worry about it next spring.

[cherokeeprogressive]

18. I'm 52. I'm giving humanity another 40-50 years, then I'm gettin' the fuck out. n/t

[Downwinder]

20. Maybe I'll go crew for Sam Clemens on the river. Can't

be any stranger than this world.

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Now THERE'S an idea! Ask Sammy if he needs one more!

I'll gladly man the sounding line... and call "mark twain!" when we're deeper than two fathoms...

[defacto7]

3. Devolving.

Working our way to extinction slowly but surely. A few are grabbing the lamps and silverware and anything else they can steel on the way down. They'll dig a big hole in the ground, throw the spoils into it, jump in and die right there with with it. The rest of us will meet out demise without a thing; we have nothing to loose.

[Loudly]

10. Giving. To combat the problem.

http://www.growforests.org/

[peoli]

11. thanks for that link. n/t

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. K&R I believe it is called suicide.

My actual scientist friends told me this years ago, back when Al Gore was just learning about the possibility that everything he worked his entire life for was going to kill the biosphere.

It's always struck me as very odd how someone like myself always seems to learn of things going on so much sooner than the people that matter do. I wonder why that is?

[spanone]

13. no one will oppose the wheels of profit...that is what america is all about

[Uncle Joe]

16. "Clarification"

4. A clarification on the alleged "slowdown." The IPCC has added considerable clarification to the most controversial part of the report, where it notes that the rate of surface temperature increase over the last 15 years ago is somewhat less than it had been previously. After an earlier draft of the report leaked in August, this section was widely cited by climate skeptics to cast doubt on global warming. Now, the IPCC clarifies that short-term trends of this kind "are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect long-term climate trends." The report says the recent reduction in the rate of warming is caused, in roughly equal parts, by natural climate variability (possibly including heat going deeper into the oceans) and a temporary decline of solar radiation reaching the planet, thanks to volcanic eruptions and the solar cycle itself. (For more detail, see our live blog.)

Thanks for the thread, peoli.

[JaneyVee]

19. But at least we made shareholders some profits!

[truebluegreen]

22. I grew up at altitude in the West and I remember that even during the summer

it was always quite cool at night. It was a very dry climate and without (the greenhouse gas) water vapor in the air there was nothing to hold the heat after the sun went down. The desert was the same--cooling quickly after dark. Now there is a different kind of greenhouse gas at work.

I think it was the late eighties, but certainly by the mid-nineties that it became obvious that the nights weren't cool anymore. Of course, the days started getting warmer too, since the temperature was starting from a higher base level. Our usual 8-10 weeks of frost-free growing season lengthened. Now high peaks that used to hold their snow pack well into July--and start regaining it by mid-August--lose that snow in May, or even April.

Two years ago I was camping in early June at 9500 or so feet above sea level. Bright starry night and the temperature didn't drop below 60, if it got that low. Should have been near or below freezing. Oh, and the snow pack at the time was 2% of normal (30 year average).

We are so screwed.