How long will it be until Maurizio denounces this as alarmist nonsense? A very long time, I suspect. When the “no cause for alarm” mantra cannot be repeated, he tends to Take the Fifth…
It seems he already has denounced this area of science. A quick web search pulls up interesting thoughts that he has. Reading and agreeing with the Junk Science blog is pretty telling.
Even a basic point that it will only take a change of a few tenths of a pH unit to trigger significant ecosystem damage seems lost on these people.
However, anyone who considers the GWPF to be a reliable source of scientific information would probably be happy to ask their butcher for a prognosis on a newly-appeared lump behind their testicles.
Or – was it really a coincidence that the concept of pH was introduced in the early 20th century; merely 60 years after Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto?
Not a problem for hundreds of years, not a problem this century, not a problem until 2050, 2020, Oh dear: Extinctions threatening already.
As science fills in the details, the problem becomes more immediate. It is when the little critters are in the larval stage that they are most vulnerable. What does it matter if adults cannot survive when there will be no adults.
Of course it is us that I most worry about, we now have the potential to make ourselves extinct.
Presumably, you are being ironic but, if not, please let David Roberts (Grist) not to worry then because he thinks we’re pretty-much screwed (because we have failed to act)… He suggests the target of limiting temperature rise to only 2 Celsius is too high to be safe and too loo to be achievable. (For 2 C submit known pH threshold for calcite dissolution/coral bleaching etc).
My view is that we’re locked in to at least six degrees at this point, barring a revolution in carbon capture and sequestration.
I also think we’re going to make it, as a species, but I think it will be really unpleasant, and will take a lot of work. We know that at some point we’ll be getting most or all of our power from renewables, and with power we’ll be able to keep cool.
At some point, we’re probably going to move farming indoors to avoid heat waves and drought, and that’ll allow us to grow food year-round.
The big question will be water, especially now that we seem to have perfected the art of contaminating even the stuff underground, but I think we’ll figure out how to make it clean.
The sooner we get set up to weather the coming bad times, the sooner we’ll be able to work on actively pulling GHGs out of the atmosphere so as to stave off a runaway greenhouse effect. Part of that will be large-scale water condensation, and part will be growing plant matter and stashing it somewhere where it won’t rot, but I think part will also be physically pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it either as gas or converting it to solid carbon.
At this point it’s going to take an unprecedented global effort over hundreds if not thousands of years if we want to steer this planet back to a climate that’s healthy for humans and the ecosystems we rely on, but I DO think it’s possible.
My attitude is that we should think about it as a sci-fi story, to a degree, at the end of which, we can actually keep the planet at people-friendly temperature, and that control will allow us to take what we learned in the process and move on to greater endeavors (I write science fiction, among other things).
He who believes in the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowledge that every organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers; and that if any one being varies ever so little, either in habits or structure, and thus gains an advantage over some other inhabitant of the same country, it will seize on the place of that inhabitant, however different that may be from its own place.
He also wrote:
Owing to the high geometrical rate of increase of all organic beings, each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants; and it follows from this, that as the favoured forms increase in number, so, generally will the less favoured decrease and become rare. Rarity, as geologists tell us, is the precursor to extinction.
When The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the world’s human population was over one billion and Malthus had already warned about the tendency of population growth to outstrip the food supply. What Darwin added to that warning may never have been stated explicitly by him, but it can be inferred from his statements above: The incredible success and inexorable growth of the human population must come at the expense of other species of plants and animals on our finite planet.
Those who tell us today that Malthus and Ehrlich were wrong have forgotten about Cassandra. Put another way, timing is the key to success for a rain dance. Malthus and Ehrlich were not wrong, they were just premature.
As Darwin wrote, he could not have imagined the continued and relentless growth of human populations and their economies; our success as a species is without precedent. However, he was right to suggest that the success of any one species and its diffusion into new territories would bring about a concomitant decline in other species…
It is paradoxical that the “fifth extinction,” which occurred about 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, opened the evolutionary door to the rise of mammals, including us. To show our gratitude we are now causing the “sixth extinction.” Not only do most humans seem oblivious to what we’re doing, most who know seem not to care, as if humans were exceptions to all the rules of nature. Somewhere on Earth another animal species goes extinct about every 20 minutes; that’s three an hour, 72 a day, 26,280 a year. By contrast, we continue to add more than 80 million humans each year, along with expanding our supply of domestic animals, squeezing more land into use for food (and fuel) production, and removing forests to make way for more of us.
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I actually saw some fossil on YouTube argue that the oceans aren’t becoming more acidic…..they’re becoming less alkaline. UGHHH…
True story, in my industry we had an anchor reporter who got a little miffed because a script writer wrote about a truck that spilled a ton of rocks, and then changed the script to read that the truck spilled 2000 lb of rocks.
“Will somebody make up their mind? How much was it? 2000 pounds or a ton!!?”
This is a much better and more informative video about Ocean acidification
How long will it be until Maurizio denounces this as alarmist nonsense? A very long time, I suspect. When the “no cause for alarm” mantra cannot be repeated, he tends to Take the Fifth…
It seems he already has denounced this area of science. A quick web search pulls up interesting thoughts that he has. Reading and agreeing with the Junk Science blog is pretty telling.
http://junkscience.com/2012/05/29/the-ocean-acidification-scare/
Even a basic point that it will only take a change of a few tenths of a pH unit to trigger significant ecosystem damage seems lost on these people.
However, anyone who considers the GWPF to be a reliable source of scientific information would probably be happy to ask their butcher for a prognosis on a newly-appeared lump behind their testicles.
Planckton… hopefully Sponge Bob’s arch nemesis has some tricks up his sleeve to allow his billions of buddies to keep on doing their thing.
I’m sorry, but it has been definitively shown by daveburton that this is all due to wild geese crapping somewhere.
Did he have a peer reviewed scientific citation for that? Haha, I chuckle at the thought.
Peer review is for sissies. Real men make up their own science.
If you hang out at WUWT and talk about peer review, you will have some people that will argue blog science is better than real science, haha.
Or – was it really a coincidence that the concept of pH was introduced in the early 20th century; merely 60 years after Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto?
Not to mention the fact that pH are the first two letters in “phony.” Perhaps a secret signal to all comrades?
Not a problem for hundreds of years, not a problem this century, not a problem until 2050, 2020, Oh dear: Extinctions threatening already.
As science fills in the details, the problem becomes more immediate. It is when the little critters are in the larval stage that they are most vulnerable. What does it matter if adults cannot survive when there will be no adults.
Of course it is us that I most worry about, we now have the potential to make ourselves extinct.
With prompt action and a bit of luck, it seems most scientists think we will come out ok.
Presumably, you are being ironic but, if not, please let David Roberts (Grist) not to worry then because he thinks we’re pretty-much screwed (because we have failed to act)… He suggests the target of limiting temperature rise to only 2 Celsius is too high to be safe and too loo to be achievable. (For 2 C submit known pH threshold for calcite dissolution/coral bleaching etc).
Well, I have to keep up my spirits somehow. 😛
My view is that we’re locked in to at least six degrees at this point, barring a revolution in carbon capture and sequestration.
I also think we’re going to make it, as a species, but I think it will be really unpleasant, and will take a lot of work. We know that at some point we’ll be getting most or all of our power from renewables, and with power we’ll be able to keep cool.
At some point, we’re probably going to move farming indoors to avoid heat waves and drought, and that’ll allow us to grow food year-round.
The big question will be water, especially now that we seem to have perfected the art of contaminating even the stuff underground, but I think we’ll figure out how to make it clean.
The sooner we get set up to weather the coming bad times, the sooner we’ll be able to work on actively pulling GHGs out of the atmosphere so as to stave off a runaway greenhouse effect. Part of that will be large-scale water condensation, and part will be growing plant matter and stashing it somewhere where it won’t rot, but I think part will also be physically pulling CO2 out of the air and storing it either as gas or converting it to solid carbon.
At this point it’s going to take an unprecedented global effort over hundreds if not thousands of years if we want to steer this planet back to a climate that’s healthy for humans and the ecosystems we rely on, but I DO think it’s possible.
My attitude is that we should think about it as a sci-fi story, to a degree, at the end of which, we can actually keep the planet at people-friendly temperature, and that control will allow us to take what we learned in the process and move on to greater endeavors (I write science fiction, among other things).
I also find that laughter helps.
I do agree, laughter helps, especially because carbon sequestration is laughable as is the entire notion that more technology is going to save us.
excerpts follow, I highly recommend this essay by Gary Peters:
http://guymcpherson.com/2011/03/population-decline-in-rich-nations-will-it-be-good-for-our-planet/
In The Origin of Species Charles Darwin wrote:
He who believes in the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowledge that every organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers; and that if any one being varies ever so little, either in habits or structure, and thus gains an advantage over some other inhabitant of the same country, it will seize on the place of that inhabitant, however different that may be from its own place.
He also wrote:
Owing to the high geometrical rate of increase of all organic beings, each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants; and it follows from this, that as the favoured forms increase in number, so, generally will the less favoured decrease and become rare. Rarity, as geologists tell us, is the precursor to extinction.
When The Origin of Species was published in 1859, the world’s human population was over one billion and Malthus had already warned about the tendency of population growth to outstrip the food supply. What Darwin added to that warning may never have been stated explicitly by him, but it can be inferred from his statements above: The incredible success and inexorable growth of the human population must come at the expense of other species of plants and animals on our finite planet.
Those who tell us today that Malthus and Ehrlich were wrong have forgotten about Cassandra. Put another way, timing is the key to success for a rain dance. Malthus and Ehrlich were not wrong, they were just premature.
As Darwin wrote, he could not have imagined the continued and relentless growth of human populations and their economies; our success as a species is without precedent. However, he was right to suggest that the success of any one species and its diffusion into new territories would bring about a concomitant decline in other species…
It is paradoxical that the “fifth extinction,” which occurred about 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, opened the evolutionary door to the rise of mammals, including us. To show our gratitude we are now causing the “sixth extinction.” Not only do most humans seem oblivious to what we’re doing, most who know seem not to care, as if humans were exceptions to all the rules of nature. Somewhere on Earth another animal species goes extinct about every 20 minutes; that’s three an hour, 72 a day, 26,280 a year. By contrast, we continue to add more than 80 million humans each year, along with expanding our supply of domestic animals, squeezing more land into use for food (and fuel) production, and removing forests to make way for more of us.
I actually saw some fossil on YouTube argue that the oceans aren’t becoming more acidic…..they’re becoming less alkaline. UGHHH…
True story, in my industry we had an anchor reporter who got a little miffed because a script writer wrote about a truck that spilled a ton of rocks, and then changed the script to read that the truck spilled 2000 lb of rocks.
“Will somebody make up their mind? How much was it? 2000 pounds or a ton!!?”
I’m not making this up.
Nick,
Re: ““Will somebody make up their mind? How much was it? 2000 pounds or a ton!!?”
It’s obvious. 2,000 is bigger than one. So that’s the number to go with. The media is a drama queen with an innumerate as well as illiterate audience.
Hell, that spill was 32,000 ounces. It was huge! 🙂
Dr. Daniel Pauly notes another aspect of acidification on the ocean’s animals. It’s going to get harder for them to breath: