Climate Change

I would love to hear a broadcast of this Bags. Sounds very interesting.

Hey! This is interesting! a courtroom style debate about climate change at the Orkney International Science Festival. The motion is: ‘That we should adapt to climate change rather than try stopping it.’ 

Excellent description of why talking about an average global surface temperature is bullshit a bit silly: Why are temperature anomalies important (or not, as the case may be)?

Very interesting essay here called Environmentalists' Amoral Disorder which was written in response to an article in Nature about why people disagree over climate change. There is a link to the Nature article so you can read both. Ben Pile writes well.

Interesting reading our electricity bill yesterday (here in France) and noting that more than 85% of our electricity is generated from nuclear energy. I think less than 2% was from coal and fossil fuels.

Sound bites

Yes,*carboncareful*, we do all have a responsibility to future generations in our use of the planet. It just seems that nobody can agree on what should be done (vested interests, anyone? - gas, oil, nuclear power etc). We just have to keep on doing our best! Recycling day here tomorrow.

Not that it matters.

*Annobel - your post "Population control was a matter of debate back in the early 70s. India tried enforced sterilisation at the time of Indira Ghandi - referred to as 'the witch' in 'Midnight's Children'. Might still be going on and, like jingl, I assume it was not aimed at the rich and educated."

I read 'On the Beach' in my teens. Long, long time ago. Scary

That book gave me nightmares too! But so did the flight of the heron.

But there is stuff we can do - and most of them benefit us in any case.
I think we owe it to our species but I am sure there are philosophical arguments that say we do not. The question is: do we have responsibilities? to the human race? Think about it, because, if we don't, then that leads to out and out anarchy or total nihilism!

Oh, Annobel, have you never read "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute? It gave me nightmares and I've never dared to read it again, but it describes what happens to people in Australia after the Northern Hemisphere has had a nuclear war, and it is so depressing as they know what is going to happen to them and can do nothing about it.

absent, thanks for those words of solace. Perhaps we should all go over to the Antipodes where it might - just might - be out of the way of the loonies....?

Bags and I agree. When the time comes for humanity to vacate this planet, there will be no turning back. So, as we're custodians for a relatively piddling length of time, enjoy the moment and let's do what we can to improve that which can be bettered. Which reminds me...Pepper's portrait calls.

It's not a particularly a bothering thought either since there's damn all we can do about it. Plenty of other things to tackle in a practical way that we actually can change (and are changing) in a relatively short time-scale.

I suspect that the human race will bring about its own demise – with a bang, not a whimper. At any given time, there are umpteen wars going on all over the world. Weapons of mass destruction already exist in the form of nuclear weapons and the search goes on for ever more destructive devices. Senior military in the Pentagon have, from time to time, expressed impatience with not being able to deploy their most recent toys and it's extremely likely that senior military figures elsewhere share this resentment. I reckon it's only a matter of time before the world's population is dramatically reduced or wiped out all together. Not that this is a comforting thought.

Yet another paper confirming, yet again, that current warming and current temperatures would appear to be nothing new, this time from the East China Sea

Well I have been accused in the past (ie people got personal about me rather than addressing what I was trying to convey) and I suppose it has made me a bit sensitive but I apologise if I got it wrong. So now I just have absolutely no understanding of what she was saying ??

j04 what have I managed to understand? I can't remember...

"Quid custodet......" There was a song in my youth that went "Who takes care of the caretaker's daughter Who checks and sees that she's doing what she oughta while the caretaker's busy taking care?"

Sorry, that was a frivolous aside and irrelevant to population control or climate change but now the tune is running through my head.

"what are you on about? "

Well. that's a nice way to put it!

annobel seems to have managed to understand what I meant.

Like Angela Merkel?

All civilised people recognise that, when, by definition — because if they don't, then they aren't civilised.

The important message seems to me to be - educate women. This applies to population control as well as to alleviating child poverty and progress towards world peace. (Let's not underestimate the effects!) It does appear that if women have power to control their own lives they will have fewer children, if only because they know enough to keep the ones they have as healthy as possible. Surely Gransnetters can support the principle that girls should be educated to as high a standard as boys.