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Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

Frankly, given the mess the world is in at the moment, with little sign of any improvement, I can't help feeling we could do a damn sight worse than try listening to what the next generation have to say.
i see your point but I don't suppose the next generation will be any better than my generation who, in the ear!y 90's were very concerned about global warming* and did all sorts of projects and so on about it. And who mostly grew up into adults who preferred to drive everywhere and take foreign holidays. It is not that I have given up, I still hardly ever drive or fly but I have more of an understanding of the politicians who say "aye whatever" and just carry on as before. I think the Earth will be better off without us if we drive ourselves into extinction. But the fact that we are taking all the birds and animals with us is a problem. :(

*as it was called back then.
 
i see your point but I don't suppose the next generation will be any better than my generation who, in the ear!y 90's were very concerned about global warming* and did all sorts of projects and so on about it. And who mostly grew up into adults who preferred to drive everywhere and take foreign holidays. It is not that I have given up, I still hardly ever drive or fly but I have more of an understanding of the politicians who say "aye whatever" and just carry on as before. I think the Earth will be better off without us if we drive ourselves into extinction. But the fact that we are taking all the birds and animals with us is a problem. :(

*as it was called back then.
Ouch. I'd love to say your points were wrong, but I don't think I can. Arguably, individual preferences around driving and foreign holidays are shaped to an extent by policy decisions taken in the past - eg urban planning based around private rather than public transport - and the acculturation that has been touched on above. But, still, we could have changed these outlooks earlier, and did not.
 
Ouch. I'd love to say your points were wrong, but I don't think I can. Arguably, individual preferences around driving and foreign holidays are shaped to an extent by policy decisions taken in the past - eg urban planning based around private rather than public transport - and the acculturation that has been touched on above. But, still, we could have changed these outlooks earlier, and did not.
Yes absolutely, you have to really go against the grain to avoid these things and it is quite difficult to do that. When I get in a car, suddenly the world revolves around me. Entire radio shows are built just for me. It's quite heady really. Likewise the holidays. As you say, people could have fought against it more if they had wanted to. But they didn't and they won't still because it is difficult to deny yourself things that you like when they are being shoved in your face. Young people in particular, only a little older than the schoolchildren doing the climate protests, have become enormous consumers of fast fashion, clothes so cheap they can fall apart after just one wear apparently, can't be recycled and can' t be sold on in charity shops. Fashion is one of the most polluting industries on the planet, if not the most. Unless the majority of these schoolchildren are somehow fundamentally different from all others who went before them, nothing will change. Apart from arsing around with electric cars and the like (You can debate the pollution aspect all you like but no-one ever thinks of the "space" pollution caused by ever increasing volumes of private car travel. All the roads, motorways, bridges, car parks, front gardens being paved over, back gardens being paved over to fit extra cars in. All destroying the environment in a completely obvious yet somehow invisible way.)

Sorry for ranting but I am sure you understand!
 
in the ear!y 90's were very concerned about global warming*
*as it was called back then.
There was a cessation in global warning for almost a decade. When this became more publicly known and verified, the rhetoric switched to 'climate change' as it avoided this awkward problem. As a bonus, everything after that could be blamed on 'climate change'. Hot spell? Climate change. Cold spell? Climate change.
 
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I’m still waiting to hear of one alleged indication of Warble Gloaming that hasn’t happened before in Earth’s climatic history - often, worse, faster or more severely - with no possibility of human involvement.

maximum otter

I've given up on that one. I don't believe in man made global warming, but either way it makes sense to switch to more sustainable energy. As long as we don't rush into it and create new problems.

I actually think the whole Climate Change movement distracts from the real damage we are doing to the biosphere.
 
I’m still waiting to hear of one alleged indication of Warble Gloaming that hasn’t happened before in Earth’s climatic history - often, worse, faster or more severely - with no possibility of human involvement.

maximum otter

I hope you're hit by an asteroid!
 
I’m still waiting to hear of one alleged indication of Warble Gloaming that hasn’t happened before in Earth’s climatic history - often, worse, faster or more severely - with no possibility of human involvement.

maximum otter
I am not sure why you think that is important. There have been other mass extinctions as well that have nothing to do with humans but there is no doubt we are causing the current one.
 
I am not sure why you think that is important. There have been other mass extinctions as well that have nothing to do with humans but there is no doubt we are causing the current one.

More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to have died out. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. In 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

Wikipedia alleges that 111 species have become extinct due to human activities.

This article states that there are a minimum of 10,000,000 species known to man. It also states that there may be one trillion species on Earth.

Using the numbers most favourable to your theory, Wikipedia alleges that man has been responsible for the extinction of 0.001% of Earth’s species.

maximus otter
 
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More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to have died out. Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. In 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction

Wikipedia alleges that 111 species have become extinct due to human activities.

This article states that there are a minimum of 10,000,000 species known to man. It also states that there may be one trillion species on Earth.

Using the numbers most favourable to your theory, Wikipedia alleges that man has been responsible for the extinction of 0.001% of Earth’s species.

maximus otter
While agreeing with the general thrust of your post, I would point out we are destroying habitats before we even know what they support. We could be eliminating as yet unidentified species who may be of great benefit to mankind, and we don't know and apparently don't care.
 
Using the numbers most favourable to your theory, Wikipedia alleges that man has been responsible for the extinction of 0.001% of Earth’s species.

Just wait a bit longer. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962 and springs have just been getting silenter every since. Between 1980 and 2009, the so called "common" bird population of Europe almost halved.

https://www.irelandswildlife.com/farmland-bird-populations-at-lowest-ever-level/

I don't have the book to hand but Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald wrote in the 1930's of seeing a 23 minute flock of knots. That is a flock that took 23 minutes to file past him. He estimated 4-5 million birds in that single flock. The RSPB estimate the current total Uk winter population at about 320, 000

A great many articles were published recently about a global crash in insect species. Up to 98% in some places. Here is one of them. They admit that in some cases, large declines may not have been noted simply because by the time measurement had begun, populations may have declined a great deal already.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone

You may look out of your window and see a few sparrows somehow clinging to life (sparrows are red listed due to a huge population decline) but you would have to be suffering from serious head-in-sand syndrome to think our wildlife population is in any way healthy. Or that we are somehow not causing it.
 
Where I live its not so bad, but of course I am in a National Park which is to some degree protected. We have Greenfinches back this year :). Plus House Martens and Swallows. We have a resident Buzzard population plus Owls and Merlins. I'm astonishingly lucky.
 
Neither, because the scientist can't spell floe.

Anyway, I've definitely seen a decline in birds, used to get a wide variety in the garden at the feeders, but now it's mostly sparrows and coal tits, with a starling or two. The finches have completely disappeared. Thankfully, there's a blackbird and his missus back after some time away, but according to a recent RSPB survey, the Beast from the East last year had devastated this year's bird populations.
 
I've given up on that one. I don't believe in man made global warming, but either way it makes sense to switch to more sustainable energy. As long as we don't rush into it and create new problems.

I actually think the whole Climate Change movement distracts from the real damage we are doing to the biosphere.

Spot.On. Cochise.
 
Quote a learned scientist...

Funding keeps you in a job.

Which of these two proposals are most likely to succeed:

'A Study of the Artic Ice Flow'.

'A Study of the Artic Ice Flow in
Relation to Climate Change'.
Ooh, are we back to the Scooby-Doo critique of climate change science? "A plucky band of impoverished oil companies win an unlikely David-vs-Goliath contest against Big Science."

Yes, academics do rely on funding. But there really isn't a lot of money out there. I'd be a brilliant absent-minded professor. Well, I've certainly got the absent-mindedness part down pat. Sorry, what was I talking about? Ah, yes: plus I've got the necessary qualifications for the professorin'. But there is a fundamental reason why I left the ivory tower and ended up teaching EFL again...
 
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A great many articles were published recently about a global crash in insect species. Up to 98% in some places. Here is one of them. They admit that in some cases, large declines may not have been noted simply because by the time measurement had begun, populations may have declined a great deal already.
Plus there's an easy homemade experiment drivers can do: compare the amount of time you spend scraping insects off the front of your car (or crash helmet visor) now, compared with, say, 10 years ago. But, no, there's no cause for alarm.
 
compare the amount of time you spend scraping insects off the front of your car (or crash helmet visor) now, compared with, say, 10 years ago
I drive a lot slower than I did years ago on account of the fact that that motorways are much busier including many many miles of 'motorway' which has quite often 40 or 50 as the 'smart' limit, and I now have a van instead of a sporty car.
 
Plus there's an easy homemade experiment drivers can do: compare the amount of time you spend scraping insects off the front of your car (or crash helmet visor) now, compared with, say, 10 years ago. But, no, there's no cause for alarm.

Now that's an interesting point. But climate change is surely not to blame? After all the common bugs are pretty tough creatures - most of them have been around a lot longer than us and have survived through previous temperature cycles. . That could maybe do with a separate discussion.
 
Now that's an interesting point. But climate change is surely not to blame? After all the common bugs are pretty tough creatures - most of them have been around a lot longer than us and have survived through previous temperature cycles. . That could maybe do with a separate discussion.
yeah that's not neccessarily climate change as such but part of the general ecocide that is taking place. but with insects dying from agricultural pesticides, loss of habitat, gardens being paved over there are a lot less of them about. then an extreme late cold snap will kill a few more while only freshly hatched. a too warm winter or very early spring will mean some plants bloom too early so when the insects hatch their food sources have gone already.

the windscreen test- i never have to clear dead insects off my windscreen. never.
 
the windscreen test- i never have to clear dead insects off my windscreen. never.

I regularly drive back from Essex to north Wales on a Friday afternoon/evening. Been doing it more than 10 years now. When I was first doing it in the summer months I was constantly washing bugs off the windscreen - I had a left hand drive car at the time so the memory is quite clear. But I haven't had to do it for the last couple of years. There is still the odd bug but nothing like it used to be.

The bugs are/were a pain because substantial parts of the journey in midsummer are in to the sun.

I really hadn't thought about it until Krepostnoi pointed it out.
 
Estimates on the number of Earth's current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. In 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described.”

maximus otter

Don't want to be nit picky but that's quite a discrepancy.
 
One of the defining things about autism is the developmental delay that almost all autistics have on one area or another.

Couple that with our "spiked" ability profile, and you get people who are capable of synthesising, analysing many many data and coming to a firm point of view backed up by evidence, while being most comfortable in clothes that signal formal, conservative and often younger than calendar age.

One theory on the younger face thing, which is common but not universal, is that we use our faces less to display emotion. As wrinkles, laughterlines and general use of the face contrinutes to an aged look, we miss out on some of that process!

Personal examples.

I'm aware that my most common mode is resting bitch face. Then something happens and I emote enthusiastically, before returning to RBF. Most NTs I have observed moves their faces about a lot more - to what end I can only guess. To me it looks like most people have nervous tics!

I didn't speak until 7ish. I recon I could have done with a gap of 2-3 years before uni. It's one of the things I try to get across to parents. Little Callum may be missing all his milestones but that is the NT developmental path; He may be spot on for being autistic!
thanks for the reply @Frideswide :)
 
I'm out here in the Australian bush, and my experience has been that insects are seasonal, dependant on the local Flora and topography.

I rode bikes for 25-30 years in various parts of Australia, preferring an open face with wrap around sunnies, and so, I copped my fair share of insects in the face.

These ranged from bee's and moths/butterflies in spring, along with the odd dragonfly, summer brought out the nemesis of all bikers, the christmas beetle along with the blow fly and when it was going to rain, flying ants.

Autumn brought out the moth (late crops), while through the year there was the consistent unconcentrated dung beetle, fly etc.

Now that I drive, I still need to clean my windscreen every time I drive anywhere, but the thought has just occurred...what if our habits are part of the equation?

We are consistently city and suburb bound, our immediate environs are relatively clean - no dung, carcasses etc. domestic animals of burden which do attract various species of insect - maybe it is a natural progression of our divorce from what once was.

When I go to the big smoke to see the Daughters there are buggerall flies, whereas out at home, there are tonnes of insects - Wasps, hornets, flies, mosquito's, moth's, butterflies, dungbeetles, butterflies.

As I grow older I worry less at what is demanded of me by NGO's, governments etc., and instead, concern myself with what is self explanatory or evident. And if something doesn't sit right, then I ask questions.

I reckon that the age of objective thought has been murdered by Corporations, with governments having their own agenda's too.
 
Yeah but what's your point? I doubt the people studying extinctions are using Wikipedia as a source.

lf you have a convenient source for numbers of species & extinctions, and its figures are significantly different from Wikipedia’s, then let’s hear about it.

maximus otter
 
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