What Scared Tony Blair Re. Climate Breakdown? - Time

[hatrack]

The standard argument against taking action against global warming is that it might not really be so bad. After all, even the most sophisticated computer models can’t say with any certainty whether the temperature will rise by a couple of degrees Fahrenheit over the next half-century or whether the increase will be five times that—or somewhere in between.

But a new report out of the British Met (for meteorological) office says that it doesn’t have to get all that warm to be very bad indeed. There isn’t any new science in the study, titled “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change”: it’s a summary of research presented at a conference of the same name last year. But it does point out that the temperature need only rise about halfway to the worst-case scenario for such catastrophic events as the melting of the Greenland ice cap, or, worse yet, the West Antarctic ice sheet. The latter event could raise sea levels a whopping 5 meters, or about 16 ft., which could drown huge swaths of low-lying coastland and essentially wipe out countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives. Modest temperature increases could also shut off key ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream, plunging Europe into a mini-Ice Age.

EDIT

Luckily for Blair, he isn’t working for NASA. Even as his comments were making headlines in England, James Hansen, a climate scientist working with the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the New York Times that NASA brass are trying to muzzle his own outspoken comments about the imminent dangers of global warming. NASA officials say in response that Hansen is simply required, as are all employees, to clear public statements with the head office.

EDIT

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1154893,00.html

[applegrove]

1. I would guess that with Greenland Ice melting - the gulf stream current

is at great risk. And if that goes... then Europe will be even more dependant on fuel to heat their homes. Their climate will become Canadian.

[orwell]

3. Blair is covered...

...he has an air conditioned doghouse reserved in Crawford.

[enlightenment]

2. I recall reading somewhere

(sorry, don't remember where), that Cambridge, England is only 6 inches above sea level. Maybe the county sits lower than the surrounding countryside, I don't know.

Even if that was shrieking hyperbole, a good portion of the island could get very, very wet if sea levels rise 16 feet.

Maybe that's what got Blair's attention -- he's afraid a significant portion of his electorate is going to need to grow gills?

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Several areas of the UK are near sea level...

Red areas are within 1 metre (or under) sealevel, orange&yellow within 5m.



Goodbye Peterborough, King's Lynn, Norwich... and Scunthorpe, but that's no loss ;)
Much of Cambridge will be OK - although it will be on the coast, rather than 50 miles inland.

[enlightenment]

6. That is a totally frightening map.

Thank you for sharing it.

I think the Cambridge comment stuck in my head because that was the very first place I visited on my first trip to England. Went to see a former prof who is now a fellow at Emmanuel College.

I fell in love. Utterly. Irrevocably. I would move tomorrow, if I could.

[megatherium]

7. Reminds me of the old Beatles song:

I'd like to be under the sea
in an Octopus's garden in the shade.
He's let us in, Knows where we've been,
in his octopus's garden in the shade
I'd ask my friends to come and see
an octopus's garden with me.
I'd like to be under the sea
in an octopus's garden in the shade.

We would be warm below the storm
in our little hideaway beneath the waves.
Resting our head on the sea bed
in an octopus's garden near a cave.
We would be sing and dance around
because we know we can't be found
I'd like to be under the sea
in an octopus's garden in the shade.
We would shout and swim about
the coral that lies beneath the waves.
(Lies beneath the ocean waves)

knowing they're happy and they're safe.
We would be so happy, you and me,
No one there to tell us what to do,
I'd like to be under the sea
in an octopus's garden with you
in an octopus's garden with you
in an octopus's garden with you

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Maybe he grew up in Walpole...

2m below sea-level...

:evilgrin:

[megatherium]

9. Is Liverpool a port? nt

[Dead_Parrot]

10. It is indeed...

A lot of the early US immigrants & settlers went via Liverpool.

[amandabeech]

11. Including my great -grandfather who came from Yorkshire,

and my Swedish great-grandmother, who left Sweden from Malmo in the south sailing for the U.S. via Liverpool on a Swedish ship.

[phantom power]

4. Maybe he peered south, and got a good hard look at Portugal.