In warmer world, Inuit buy air conditioners
 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060807/...JlYmhvBHNlYwM-

88 F is probably a nice cool day to you Southern folk, but having lived in the north (ie: the true north, where nothing grows but moss) that is insane heat - I can remember, as a kid in those climates, wearing gloves and a sweater in June & July (which was the entire summer where I was).

Quebec humidity is the problem.

It probably feels like 100+

Go to AZ, its just the opposite. I went out into the desert all day in 90 degrees and didn't break a sweat.

We got that problem here in England, humidity is what knocks the heck out of you. But we have another problem as well with more and more people buying fans and air conditioners it's puts a great strain on our electricity, parts of London have had power cuts by the electric company's and we could face black outs on a national scale.

And if that was not bad enough North Sea oil and gas are running low now and we have to import from Europe and all the time the consumer bills are going up and up. I think we are heading for big problems and no one has got any answers.

Soon people will be colonizing Antartica...

Sounds good better claim my spot before it fills up. :D

This would be the 'scary stuff around the corner'. The Middle East, 'Big Brother' are but phantoms, however, climate change is the real deal.

We have ten years. The clock is ticking.

Climate change is not all that big yet. What scientist mean by global warming is only 1 to 2 degrees at a time - which can devastate the ice shelfs.

You are just getting lucky with such a nice summer which comes around every 12 years due to the ocean currents. In a couple years you will be saying, remember that good summer we had a couple years back?

One more thing - don't think that global warming means hotter sunny summers. What it really means is more evaporation of the oceans which leads to more cloud cover and that cloud cover will also contribute to warmer temps. Its a big cycle.

-S

Yet. However, your information lacks a critical element. Scientists mean global warming is on a global average of 1 to 2 degrees. The repercussions of this are far greater than melting ice: Desertification, widescale flooding, an increased threat of major storms and hurricanes, larger and more frequent wild fires, a rise in sea level and a wide-spread extinction of various plants and animals.

This is only the beginning.

PS You are correct about the cloud cover, but I do not recall suggesting otherwise.

Considering that in 6 years according the Myan callander the worlds supose to end :p ... il be 22....

There´s not many left after all (if any), maybe the "last of the mayas" would die in 2012.

If you are not a Maya, don´t worry about the Mayan calendar.

I agree with the 10 year figure; that is, we have about 10 years to halt the climate change process before it reaches a "critical point" where we will have two stark choices, and either of which will result in a radical transformation of civilization as we know it.

And, like you say, it is a global average of 1 to 2 degrees, and what that means in reality is that some parts of the world are being subjected to previously unknown heatwaves while others are seeing record cold spells (because the warming effect is not uniform across the globe).

One expert I've seen on the BBC, when asked about solving this problem, put it this way: "don't be under 40".

too late.....I'm 22 years early.

Or something along those lines.....

Or else you might believe this!

Anyone old enough to remember in 1975 the rising concern and the idiotic schemes devised to prevent the coming ice age? Experts said it was on the way and there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. People and 'experts' alike were amazed governments refused to prepare for it. Yes the world was told back then to bundle up or freeze to death!

At the time I lived in Minesota and thought yipeeee ice fishing all year!

There is no longer any scientific dispute over climate change or the catastrophic consequences that lay just over the horizon if the process is not halted. The only debate remaining is in precisely how long we have until the critical threshold is passed (the point of no return), and in the details surrounding exactly how events will unfold once we pass that point.

End of the scientific part. The rest lies with the public and policy makers in exactly how we're going to go about stopping this process before its too late - only that debate isn't taking place. And by the time it does it'll probably be too late anyway.

No dispute? Ha!

All i hear is dispute, from the amount humans actually effect climate change, to whether that effect is retarding or accellerating the present trends, to our (arrogant IMO) belief that we have any realistic capability to slow or prevent warming and cooling cycles that have been going on since the planet developed a crust. We can't even tell for sure that whatever measures we might attempt would make things better or worse.

Re-read what I wrote:

There is no longer any scientific dispute over climate change or the catastrophic consequences that lay just over the horizon if the process is not halted.

The things that are still being debated are those things you mentioned, but I had said as much anyway.

I remember back in school, as a little child already, we were repeatedly told the Amazon jungle would cease to exist by the time we were adults. As we grew up the scientific arguments started becoming more, well, scientific. As a young adult I despered, for years the apocaliptical scenario was painted in front of me, specialists, experts, scientific research and studies.

And here I am, and there is the Amazon. The first casualty of war is the truth, that's what I learned from it.

Keep the material for your grand-children so they don't fall for the next apocaliptical doomed-era. That is, if you have any.

A year ago, I was as critical as many of you are now. Since that time, I have discovered a major shift has occured in the scientific community. There is no longer any meaningful debate as to whether global warming is real, and as to whether our industrial activies are greatly responsible. This was enough to turn me to a believer, in a moment of 'holy cow, this stuff is real'-type epiphany.

The vaunted 2005 report summary from the National Academy of Sciences: http://www4.nationalacademies.org/on...e?OpenDocument

It is the nature of humans and society to avoid and scrutinize serious problems as long as possible. Goodness knows that those problems are frightening enough. It was done with smog, and waterway pollution in the 1960's and 1970's. It was done with child laber in the late 19th and early 20th centurys. However, that window of blissful ignorance eventually has to close, and we are now nearing that point.

Have ye courage? Face the problem. It can be solved.

LOL that sounds familiar, the same was said about the ice age that lay right around the corner in '75'. The 'experts' even offered to develope a plan to blanket the polar ice cap with soot and ash to melt it and prevent the coming catostrophy. brrrrrrr

Give it another 20 years and we'll talking about it again.