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Is Global Warming becoming unstoppable?

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The latest advisory White Paper is spelling out (in capitals) the impact climate chnage will have on Australias closet neighbours and how this will affect us.

Australia facing climate disaster on its doorstep, government's white paper warns
Foreign policy paper says climate-related conflict and migration could put Australia’s economic interests under pressure


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Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop at the launch of the foreign policy white paper. The foreign affairs minister said Australia would resist the ‘false hope of protectionism and isolationism’. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

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Katharine Murphy Political editor


@murpharoo

Thursday 23 November 2017 02.44 GMT Last modified on Thursday 23 November 2017 02.46 GMT

Climate change is creating a disaster on Australia’s doorstep, with environmental degradation and the demand for sustainable sources of food undermining stability in some countries, especially “fragile states”, according to the Australian government’s first foreign policy white paper in more than a decade.

The new white paper, released on Thursday, contains warnings over the disruptive effects of climate change in Australia’s immediate region, noting that many small island states will be “severely affected in the long term”, and the coming decade will see increased need for disaster relief.

The white paper notes the demand for water and food will rise, with the world’s oceans and forests under intense pressure. It notes climate change and pressure on the environment could contribute to conflict and irregular migration, impacting specifically on Australia’s economic interests.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...on-its-doorstep-governments-white-paper-warns
 
wayneL said:
I think Revelations is more likely
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Interesting how one can breathe through the sand if you have the right cover. Had myself checked for dementia there awhile back but all good.

Scientists just realising that measurements have been based on a sea temperature some eight degrees above levels 150 to 200 years back. But no one wants to hear those sort of distortions so its all expunged. Just party.
 
explod said:
Interesting how one can breathe through the sand if you have the right cover. Had myself checked for dementia there awhile back but all good.

Scientists just realising that measurements have been based on a sea temperature some eight degrees above levels 150 to 200 years back. But no one wants to hear those sort of distortions so its all expunged. Just party.
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Citations please
 
wayneL said:
Thanks for the link

I'm busy with more important research my sanctimonious friend, viz the effects of static dorsiflexion of the distal interphalangeal joint on the podotrochlear apparatus in performance equines. ;)
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Me too, "the frequency of sight across the picture plane" . Started with Johannus Itton.

Be good to get into that brain stuff though .
 
I think GW is just one of the problems we have, whether it's caused by us or the sun. I remain adamant that it's overpopulation that's the key problem. It will also cause the next major WW because of competition for finite resources. I doubt we can science our way out of this. We crossed the point of no return about 2 billion people ago. Now the next mass extinction is almost inevitable. Whether it's nuclear war, disease, or environmental collapse - too many humans. It's going to take some time though and we'll be long gone.
 
kennas said:
I think GW is just one of the problems we have, whether it's caused by us or the sun. I remain adamant that it's overpopulation that's the key problem. It will also cause the next major WW because of competition for finite resources. I doubt we can science our way out of this. We crossed the point of no return about 2 billion people ago. Now the next mass extinction is almost inevitable. Whether it's nuclear war, disease, or environmental collapse - too many humans. It's going to take some time though and we'll be long gone.
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Agree you and I, but we won't be long gone in my view. In fact I dont think humans will last till 2050. You wont stop population growth or land clearing or runnoff into the oceans or those waiting for God to save us.

Its all over so just party.
 
kennas said:
I remain adamant that it's overpopulation that's the key problem.
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That's hard to argue.

Nobody would worried about CO2 emissions if all Victoria (for example) had was steam locomotives, a few gas works producing trivial amounts of gas compared to what's used today and a small power station burning coal at Newport. A century ago that was indeed the case and whilst I don't have figures I'll say with confidence that the total CO2 emissions of those locomotives and gas works etc was absolutely trivial compared to today.

Deforestation, over fishing, natural gas, coal, oil, anything nuclear, petrochemicals and other toxics - practically the whole lot has occurred in just one human lifetime.

If someone is now 40 years old then they're roughly half way through their life. Now consider that two thirds of all crude oil ever used by man has been used in their lifetime thus far and you start to grasp the problem. It's similar for all sorts of other things - eg virtually all gas ever used has been used since 1960. No such thing as nuclear energy until the 1950's and it wasn't significant until the 1970's. Same with everything from metal ores to fish - the rapid rate of consumption is a very recent development even in terms of times that individual humans experience.

If it all ends badly then I expect it will take a form not dissimilar to what happens to most people, machines and other things as they come to the end of their life. All good until pretty close to the end when it starts to go downhill rather fast. Most collapses take that form - the ride down is a lot faster than the ride up was.
 
Unfortunately Smurf has exposed/acknowledged the wider issues of resource collapse as factors in a non viable society. We just don't want to think about these issues do we ? Far, far too challenging.

And yet the premise of our economic system is endless growth on a finite earth. Doesn't quite work dose it ?
 
basilio said:
And yet the premise of our economic system is endless growth on a finite earth. Doesn't quite work dose it ?
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Nope. But of course it creates jobs and that's the political selling point.

The only person who has spoke seriously about this recently has been Dick Smith and he has been laughed off by the major parties and business groups.

Population growth is a Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse.
 
basilio said:
Unfortunately Smurf has exposed/acknowledged the wider issues of resource collapse as factors in a non viable society. We just don't want to think about these issues do we ? Far, far too challenging.
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The thing about resources is that you can really only use half of them in practice.

We've seen past debates about dams in Tasmania and then forests.

Now we're seeing debates about gas in various states and coal mines in Queensland.

It's the same story with all resources. Nobody cares too much if you want to build one dam or cut enough timber to supply one saw mill. Just put the dam somewhere that's cheap and easy and which nobody's worried about and even Bob Brown might be willing to turn the first sod if you asked him. Seems like a good idea and there's no real downside.

Then you build another one. And another one. And another....

Pretty soon you're drawing up plans to dam literally every last creek and are faced with building things which are at unfavourable sites which cost a fortune, are in the middle of nowhere or which have conservation values strong enough that people will fight for them.

So you'll never dam the lot and you'll never mine all the coal or take all the gas from the ground. The first part is easy but the more you use the more costly it gets - economic, social, environmental etc it all gets more expensive no matter how you measure it.

There's plenty of examples globally and they all come to somewhere around the 50% mark as to what's actually useful. Going to 60% might be done for political reasons or to bring about some sort of semi-orderly end to it all but nobody goes to 100% or even 90%.

There's still a lot of coal in the UK for example. It's just that what's left is too deep or otherwise too costly (economically or environmentally) to mine and so it's staying in the ground. Sure, Thatcher wound it down and that's well known but what's less well known is that UK coal production was already heading firmly down well before she came on the scene - it peaked way back in 1913! All Thatcher really did was accelerate what was inevitable and even then she didn't make a lot of difference really in a big picture sense.

Closer to home the proverbial Blind Freddy can see that the game's just about up for expanding coal mining in Qld and NSW. It's not just the CO2 issue but the simple reality that if you look at official NSW government estimates as to coal that's actually worth mining then there's only 60 years left anyway and that's with zero growth in production. Plenty more coal in the ground yes, but not coal that's economic to mine and which isn't under cities, major infrastructure or things like National Parks. Qld isn't so far down that curve yet but at even a modest growth rate it happens before too much longer.

As an exercise to illustrate the point, let's say you live on a 600m2 block. The house is 150m2, the front yard is 200m2 and the backyard is 250m2. Ignore space down the side of the house to keep it simple.

You're now going to dig up 1m2 per year, with a 10% growth rate in your digging per annum.

It will take you 59 years to dig up the backyard.

In the next 17 years you will rip up the entire front yard.

It will take you just 3 years to rip up the house.

So that's a total of 68 years to demolish everything on your suburban block.

What happens in the next 68 years? Well you will completely rip up not one but 645 suburban blocks just like the one you had.

And the 68 years after that? Well you've now ripped down every house in Adelaide.

20 years after that Sydney's completely gone too.

Another 5 years and now you've also demolished Melbourne.

And so on.

Constant compounding growth consumes everything in the end and does so at a rate that becomes truly frightening toward the end.
 
Awesome Smurf. Probably one of the most down to earth presentations of the Limits to Growth issue I have seen for ages. That example you offered on the effects of compounding growth on ripping up homes/suburbs/cities is unnerving.
 
Not that simple.

We can shift onto other resources, use resources more efficiently, not living in houses on blocks but in little human caves stacked on top of each other called apartments, make technological advances etc.
I am not so negative about the future.

In my view it will be intentionally engineered viruses that will virtually wipe out humanity.
Kurt Vonnegut's "Galapagos'" is the way I predict it will end. Like a biological computer virus.
 
Didn't Victoria build a desalination plant a few years ago, because the experts said their dams would never be filled again?
How are the dams? Seems like you're getting plenty of rain.
 
Labor said they wouldn't build a dam but as the drought continued they panicked. Built it during the GFC on awful terms as only 2 tendered, both French and probably in collusion. Debt Disaster.
 
sptrawler said:
Jeez it must be a big dam.
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The desal plant will still be needed, don't worry about that. The science on climate change is learning as she goes, no one can really predict, remember "trend" though. What was obviously missed was the rising temperature at the two poles being effected to the degree that moisture started to rise which then travelled north and south respectively. Its called displacement and the warmer it gets the more volatile the weather. Hottest month ever here in Victoria for November. Now freezing cold here and in Tassie the other night a big fall of winter snow, IN DECEMBER, excuse me.

I had to put the heater on just before posting
 

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