Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
WE LEARNED LAST year that many of the effects of climate change are irreversible.
Sea levels have been rising at a greater rate year after year, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates they could rise by another meter or more by the end of this century.
Watch this animation to see what would happen next.
Happy Easter?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
George Carlin – “The Planet is fine, the people are f@cked!”: https://youtu.be/NL8HP1WzbDk
Wasn’t he someting else Art? His take on Christianity “Just remember Jesus loves you. He loves you and he needs money”
Ah he was a delight to listen to alright. Had such a fantastic way with words, his bits on ‘time’ and ‘stuff’ are some of my favourites from any comedian…
He always inserted “truth” into his stand up.
I don’t get it, there was loads of land left at the end of the clip.
So why did Kevin Costner get stuck living on a boat in Waterworld, with only a Mad Max style artificial island and Mount Everest as his alternatives?
All the ice won’t melt so nothing to worry about.
Oh have you got a solution to climate change then Glen?
Didn’t Al gore etc predict global warming would have wiped us all out by now?
JJ
There is no solution for climate change as it’s more than likely a natural cycle.
Glens plan is to stand by a beach and wait for nature to take its course!
Thanks for clearing that up glen. Nothing to see here folks, move along please.
Yes, climate change is a natural phenomenon. But previous patterns show the rates in the past were nowhere near the rate it’s occurring at right now.
But I’m sure the scientists that are sponsored by the oil industry are the right ones.
Glen, you think we can take all those hydrocarbons, deposited over millions of years, burn them in a flash and not affect the climate?
Bury your head in the sand if you want, but your ar$€ will still feel the heat
Is the human effect on climate change not part of a “natural phenomenon”?
Glen, can you provide a link to your claim?
Glen, you always ask me yo add something to the debate but you yourself provide nothing of substance and only a throwaway comment.
@top cat – yes. His science fiction movie told us all the arctic ice would be melted by 2013. This is also the reason he has bought a mansion on the waterfront.
I cannot understand the fixation of Al Gore. How can you ignore the fact that every single scientific academy in the world (across all the different scientific disciplines) says that the evidence shows clearly that anthropogenic climate change is real, is a cause for grave concern and we are close to dangerous tipping points? How could anybody, with that evidence, be willing to take the risk of creating a climate that will lead to conditions that will not be able to support human life?
Oh crap climate change! I hope they tax us enough to solve this problem! Building a dam outside my house as I type
I hope they just don’t tax us but that they take the problem seriously – our current Climate Bill is weak, despite the efforts of all the brave TDs who spoke passionately in the Dail to strengthen it – ones I would not have expected like all the left wing independents. They recognise that large corporations are destroying the conditions for life on earth and they don’t give a s**t about us and our children’s future. Our generation is the only one that will be able to take the necessary action – for our children it will be too late and they will just have to watch it all unfold – horribly sad.
Looks like I will have a beach side house. Just need to live to see the end of the world..
Surely the ocean ice is currently displacing the water so shouldn’t cause the sea to rise as it melts. The land based ice if it melts would take weight off land masses causing them to rise higher like after the last ice age.
The biggest problem I see is the desalination of the water and less salt for my fish and chips.
Those clever scientists have thought of all of that! Indeed the massive influx of cold fresh water is already slowing down the massive movement of oceanic water that is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which would end the Gulf Stream that gives us our warm climate. Our children are going to just LOVE us, since we are on the same latitude with places in Canada that can go 40 below in winter – it’s only the Gulf Stream that stops that from happening.
Our temperate climate. One half decent bank holiday weekend and we’ve forgotten December already!
The ocean ice issue is correct. The problem is that most of the Greenland and Antarctic ice is on land.
The thermohaline circulation system that powers the Gulf Stream is also driven by sea ice forming. If that fails, Ireland would probably end up with a climate like Labrador.
Invest in cod trawling and conifers…
Ted, how would taking weight off the land cause them to rise higher?!
Ted is right about that actually Ross! However, the sea level rise calculations have taken that into account!
I hope you’re trolling with that comment Ted, to say it’s inaccurate would be an understatement….
The only AMOC worth talking about is the Aston Martin Owners Club.
It is happening to the UK. Post-the last Ice Age the UK is pivoting … Scotland is rising and the South East of England is sinking. It is very gentle over geologic time frame but it is happening. Land masses are not fixed items.
The world has gone through much bigger catastrophes which wiped out almost all life-forms, throughout it’s long history, long before humans even came into existence and life still survived and continued to evolve.
The world isn’t going to die just because people drive more or use more showers or turn up their stereos louder.
Climate change doesn’t mean all life will end no one has ever claimed that, it means that large tracts of land will be flooded and our climate will become more unpredictable. We will less space to live there could be massive migrations of people all over the world, and people aren’t too fond of refugees. Also it will be more difficult to grow crops and so there could be food shortages. Life won’t end it will just be a lot more difficult that’s if climate change ever does come true.
Indeed, and it is those mass extinctions from the past (before humans) that are causing the greatest concern – scientists say we are re-creating the kinds of conditions that led to those past mass extinctions (the fossil and ice core records show us that) – and are calling what we are doing now a mass extinction event – in the past there were different natural forcings that led to rapid climate change and that is how we know that flora and fauna (including us) cannot adapt or evolve to deal with it.
You are right that the world is not going to die but our lack of action on cleaning up our world (and thereby having a less polluted and more pleasant world) will lead to a possible extinction of most life on earth in the not too distant future. That seems to me to be a hideous thing to do with the full knowledge that we are doing it. If you think this is fantasy, bear in mind that every scientific discipline, and every reputable scientific body in the world says this is the situation we are in. Bit of a gamble to ignore that, don’t you think, especially as what we are doing now will have domino effects that will be irreversible.
American Physical Society Policy Statement on climate change: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as methane, nitrous oxide and other gases. They are emitted from fossil fuel combustion and a range of industrial and agricultural processes. The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.
If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
Trocaire statement on climate change:
“Climate change is already a daily reality for communities in many developing countries. It massively impacts their ability to access enough water or grow enough food to survive, let alone thrive.
Changes in rainfall and drought patterns are having a devastating effect on small farmers.
It is predicted that yields from ‘rain-fed’ agriculture will drop by 50% by 2020 – deepening the food and water crises we already face.
Without urgent action, climate change presents a major threat to right to water for even more people. By 2025, almost two thirds of the world’s population (5.4 billion people) are likely to experience some kind of water stress, and for one billion of them the shortage will be severe.
In recent years, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in extreme weather events across the world, with the highest concentration in our poorest regions.
In fact, there have been almost three times the number of disasters recorded in the last decade compared to the 1970s. And since 2000, the growth rate in the number of people affected by climate-related disasters has doubled.
The costs of dealing with climate change effects are rising sharply, impacting more and more on the economies of countries in both developed and developing countries.
Our inaction is costing us money. The losses that we have incurred because of climate change exceed the cost of low carbon adaptation.
In an Irish context, climate change will have a major impact on the agricultural industry. It is estimated that climate change could cost the Irish agricultural sector between €1 and €2 billion per annum.”
American Association for the Advancement of Science statement:
“The vast preponderance of evidence, based on years of research conducted by a wide array of different investigators at many institutions, clearly indicates that global climate change is real, it is caused largely by human activities, and the need to take action is urgent,” said Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of the journal Science.
Climate change is the the debate. It IS changing. The debate is about whether anything man can do, or not do, will actually change that fact. The science is incredibly sketchy but governments have latched onto it as a great way to raise “green” taxes, which don’t seem to be being spent on anything specific and some people are arrogant enough to believe that Man can really have any major effects on this cyclical climate change; whilst fudging the issue of previous climate changes before Man evolved.
Unfortunately it has become a quasi-religion, which is not healthy or helpful. Eventually, the Earth will die, as will the Sun, but man will have disappeared aeons before that.
Looking at this, I would miss Argentina but other than that I think the worst thing about all the ice melting would be the lack of cold drinks..
Right lads, off to the himalayas with us.
Kevin Costner can’t have been looking very hard.
There’s fuk all to c in Florida anyhow
Sorry, I just don’t get the purpose of this ‘article’. If it were linked to an advert for dinghies, perhaps, but otherwise nothing new!
I agree that the obsession with sea level rise IS a bit annoying in view of the fact that many of the effects of the climate change we are creating will be much more serious for life on earth – we are creating total system collapse that will lead to widespread drought, famine, mass migration, conflict and wars – and because of the nature of climate change it will be irreversible and persist for thousands of years. What nice people we are.
‘Irreversible’ and ‘persist for thousands of years’ – contradicting yourself there Little Diddy
Sorry Dave, I did not put that very well! What I mean is that we are nearing tipping points where domino effects will ensure that changes will take place that will be irreversible – so we cannot stop our emissions when things start to get really hairy and reverse that domino effect. Some of those changes we make by interfering with the planet’s carbon cycle on such a massive scale will lead to climate change that will persist for hundreds to thousands of years (depending on which changes you are talking about). That is what is so scary to me. Paleoclimatology tells us that rapid climate change (like what we are doing) has always led to mass extinction in the past. We may think we have the technology to fix everything, but there are thousands of unknown outcomes of our huge experiment with the planet that may be very nasty indeed – some of the known ones include the fact that with some plants pollinators are already seen to be emerging earlier than the flowers they pollinate – we will be facing starvation if we knock out the pollination of our food crops by insects through the kind of rapid change that scientists say flora and fauna cannot adapt to because it is too rapid.
Here’s a few good pieces explaining it and why sea level rise may be the least of our worries if we tip over into irreversible and catastrophic climate change – the line we cross to do that is very close:
http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2012/10/can-we-define-the-tipping-point-into-reversible-climate-change
http://onehundredmonths.org/
All I can say is scuba diving will be more interesting. Let’s see…Brown Thomas at 15m depth or do the tunnel on a night dive. Choices, choices
My gaff’s grand anyway. It might turn out to be beach front property…but grand. Any studies on erosion? Sorry to anyone that’s already in a state over the ice.
Me too. Cork city looks grand and it means less of a drive to the beach.
On the brighter side we get rid of Limerick and Cork ;)
Your geography is appalling if thats what you see.
Well, since there is about 70m of sea level rise in the land ice, we’d lose Cork and Limerick cities alright. Most of Dublin and Belfast as well. I’d have a pier into the Blackwater inlet in my garden in Mallow…
When was the last time you were in Cork ? Maybe we would lose the city centre, as we all know it doesn’t take much for that to flood but the Northside is similar to the terrain of the Himalayas . During the tour of Ireland years ago they had them trying to cycle up Patricks Hill, I remember watching on as a kid and most actually lifted their bikes and walked up it. The same people that were cycling up the Alps a month later. Plus if the map is accurate then Cork is ok.
Almost all of Cork city is below 70m. Try getting a map.
@George, how about you try actually reading what I wrote ? I’m from Cork, born and bred. The airport is 154meters above sea level along with practically all of the Northside of the city. Maybe instead of me getting a map (which I don’t need) you pay a visit to Cork ?
Paul, get a map. You’ll find that Montenotte and Mayfield aren’t swamped. You’ll also find that the airport is several miles south of the city.
I’ve been trying to find a handy online contour map of Cork, but there isn’t one. So, harbour pints in Henchys. Blackpool under water. Lee flooded as far as Inniscarra. Silversprings underwater. Mayfield, Montenotte OK. Gurranabraher and Churchfield OK. All of city centre under several meters. Douglas, Togher, Blackrock, Mahon under water. Will I continue?
I did say most of Cork city, not all. I also live in Cork. Not being particularly rude, but try tracing the 70m contour and then come back to me if, say, more than 30% of the city (either old corpo boundary or urban area) is dry, and I’ll eat my hat.
You still didnt actually read what I posted ? Because you just proved my point. The Glen, Mayfield, Churchfield, Knocknaheeny, Guraunabrher, Dublin Hill all ok . That is practically all of the Northside.
The airport is a marker. Most of the Northside is above the level of the airport.
Try reading posts before going off on one and then actually proving the point of the person you actually think you are disagreeing with.
I did read it. This is going nowhere, but most of Cork is not the Northside. Incidentally, two offshore islands separated by the Blackpool Channel will not be a positive thing. Now, let’s not argue and maybe agree that 220ft of water over the city centre just might make the city unviable?
Or, are you suggesting that an inundation that pretty much covers County Hall leaves more than a fraction of the city dry? The point is that a 70m rise would leave most cities in Ireland, including Cork, as basket cases.
And finally, a basic Discovery series map gives the highest point at Churchfield as 161m. If the airport is as you say, I really don’t see how you think that most of the north side is higher?
70 m contour is at where the Middle Road reaches the North Ring. It runs through Douglas golf club and also above Pouladuff. It also bisects Blarney St and somewhere up Shanakiel. Comment about eating my hat still applies. I’ll even put it on YouTube.
Mankind will adapt and survive as we have managed to do so up to now.
Yes we will. We adapted to the Black Death as well. That was fun.
The Black Death. Oh the good old days. Miss them.
The scientific view – across all of the scientific disciplines – is that, on our current trajectory, we are very likely to create conditions on this planet that are not conducive to human life (and have not existed in the whole time humans have been on the planet). There is only about 8 or 9 degrees difference globally between our current climate and the last ice age (in the opposite direction obviously!), and our current trajectory will lead to domino effects that will lead to perhaps 6 or 7 degrees global warming within this century – most scientists believe that this is not survivable for humans. The problem also is that rate of change – in the past, paleoclimatology tells us, climate change this fast (from a range of different causes obviously!) has always led to ‘mass extinction events’. That seems to me a horrible thing to deliberately do to our future generations because we can’t be arsed to push our politicians for clean sustainable energy.
American Chemical Society policy statement:
“Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and absorbing aerosol particles.” (IPCC, 2007) “Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for—and in many cases is already affecting—a broad range of human and natural systems.” (NRC, 2010a) “The potential threats are serious and actions are required to mitigate climate change risks and to adapt to deleterious climate change impacts that probably cannot be avoided.”
The range of observed and potential climate change impacts identified by the ACC assessment include a warmer climate with more extreme weather events, significant sea level rise, more constrained fresh water sources, deterioration or loss of key land and marine ecosystems, and reduced food resources— many of which may pose serious public health threats. (NRC, 2010a) The effects of an unmitigated rate of climate change on key Earth system components, ecological systems, and human society over the next 50 years are likely to be severe and possibly irreversible on century time scales.
World Meteorological Society statement:
There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are
warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking.
The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research. The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate. To inform decisions on adaptation and mitigation, it is critical that we improve our understanding of the global climate system and our ability to project future climate through continued and improved monitoring and research. This is especially true for smaller (seasonal and regional) scales and weather and climate extremes, and for important hydroclimatic variables such as precipitation and water availability.
Technological, economic, and policy choices in the near future will determine the extent of
future impacts of climate change. Science-based decisions are seldom made in a context of
absolute certainty. National and international policy discussions should include consideration of the best ways to both adapt to and mitigate climate change. Mitigation will reduce the amount of future climate change and the risk of impacts that are potentially large and dangerous. At the same time, some continued climate change is inevitable, and policy responses should include adaptation to climate change. Prudence dictates extreme care in accounting for our relationship with the only planet known to be capable of sustaining human life.
As the song goes what will be will be ,r
Well at least the African continent seems to be safe. Even Ireland wasn’t affected. Happy days.
Except, as all the national and international aid agencies calling for action on climate change tell us, Africa is already suffering from drought because of climate change and because of their position on the planet they will suffer ongoing drought now with no relief and mass starvation. Once people in the many areas of the world that climate change will render incapable of sustaining human life get on the move in mass migrations, it will not be pretty. Worldwide food shortages, millions of refugees, widespread conflict and war. Much of the water that people need to drink and irrigate crops is becoming lost to them (ie huge ice packs on mountains that melt in spring and feed rivers are now disappearing – California is one example of this – they are considered the ‘bread basket’ of the USA, but are now in a prolonged drought and have used all their water (including ground water) and they now only have enough water left for less than a year.
Should it not say “when all the ice melts”
have your say