What do you mean by climate change???

[trave]

Hi

Climate change means the variation in the Earth's global climate with time. It refers the average state of the atmosphere over time scale changing.

[Johnny Electriglide]

The "Climate Change" as it is referred to, is "Global Warming" in different words, or "climate change beyond historic".
Generally, this has meant beyond that which has been measured in the last couple hundred years of accurate weather observations. We can take it further to change faster and warmer than that shown in ice and ocean bottom core sample dating back 1.1 million years. The reality since the turn of the century is change toward greater warmth at a RATE not even seen in the geologic record. Cooling rates have been faster from impacts and super volcanoes.
We can imagine times during the accretion phase that were more rapid, but those are not in the record because of weathering and subduction. Local area heat from impacts and volcanism is recorded, but nothing on a global scale.
The vector of climate change now being recorded is toward an unlivable biosphere for humans and most other species in a few hundred years or less.
What is being recorded now is well beyond worst case scenarios of late last century predictions. The types and rates of change necessary for humans to stop and reverse what they have started get greater and greater as time rushes on. The tipping point is very close-----within less than a decade for sure, if not already passed.
Climate change is just one of the factors leading to this unlivable biosphere for our future generations. Rapid reduction of most output of CO2 is part of the solution and rapid depopulation is another, which will happen naturally if not done artificially with a 1/2 generation moratorium on having children. It is sad but true that it has gotten to this point where the solutions are so unpalatable to most people.
The natural course will most likely be followed. That is mass extinctions and a different biosphere for a very long time, with disruption of the glacial cycle at least this time around, and probably many more. However, it is still only probabilities and not certainties. In nature, anomalies occur.
The Krakatoa or Yellowstone super volcano could erupt before normally thought, along with a quicker stopping of the Gulf Stream. These things, at this point in time or the near future, could start the glacial cycle and negate the global warming effects (and thus the extent of the extinctions). Later, the warming effects could be too great for even these events to have enough effect.

[rc white]

If we give a scientific definition of climate we might say something like, "climate is the time integral of weather".
We can perform this by averaging several years and obtaining an average temperature humidity rainfall, and by mappings such as month to month averages and so on.
All of this of course is immediately lept upon by climate skeptics who rightly point out that what the climate is actually doing can vary a lot dependent upon which you specify and look at.
On some scales for instance normal variations in weather are large enough so that any real climate change is masked unless it becomes very large.
This is the problem we have in Australia where such large variations naturally occur in the weather that discerning what is actual climate change is difficult.
If however you have data that suggests a rate of global warming unprecedented in the geological record is occurring, the rapid melting of glaciers and sea ice is happening, and anomalous weather events are being noted by actuaries and taken into account in insurance policies then this is fair indication the the weather averaged over time is changing, precisely why is another matter, and it is the connection between it and human activity that is the issue.
rcw

[Corey]

I consider climate change as described by others part of a bigger picture.

A symtom of a bigger problem which is "US" our decisions and actions which have the accumulation of billions of humans combined who are living 20-30 years longer than before.

[rc white]

I do not agree that climate change should be used as a general metaphor for what does and is said to ail human kind, it is a specific change in the environment in which we live, and hanging all sorts of other issues of it is just playing into the skeptics hands.
In the past migrations of humans can be traced to changes in climate, overpopulation desertification etc., the difference now is there is no place left to go.
What this means to me is that we face a world where increasing conflict is inevitable as people seek to move to more hospitable places, and those who inhabit those places seek to resist them.

If there is no real concerted effort to reduce greenhouse emissions, (all indications I have seen being too little too late will be the reality).
It is inevitable that those with the resources will use them to keep out those that are in a less fortunate position, that is the first world will seek to save itself at the cost of the rest.

That we have to face this type of nightmare scenario seems to me the real meaning of climate change, and us fortunate few in the right places, will probably, (however reluctantly), partake in this to save ourselves and ours.

Up until now the right has been able to discredit climate change as a leftish scare campaign, and claim that they are taking the responsible conservative approach to things, they are not of course, and the business as usual approach is in fact dangerously radical, but it is a madness that is not without method, however chilling the implications of it are, and some call to Utopian idealism is naught but a fart against thunder in this scenario.
rcw
rcw

[Johnny Electriglide]

I like your fart against thunder metaphor. Third world low IQ over breeders ARE migrating to "First world" countries where there is over-tolerance or lack of enforcement of laws through greed. The USA is fast becoming a third world country with their influx and proclivity. The non-green corporate/government corruption greed artists allow them to displace American middle class and beginning workers, and accept the consequences of lower quality. They love the fact that the immigrants, legal or illegal, become consumers like the rest of Americans. They consistently have their heads in the sand about future consequences of the population crash of 2048 and global warming faster than plantlife and creatures can adapt. It isn't just Republicans denial, but Democrats, too. They are mostly felons by federal laws themselves, and traitors to the country. Gore having interest in a carbon points trading company really gives the low brow skeptics ammunition.
The set-up now is for a complete world economic depression, where people who could have afforded solar or wind independence before, won't be able to. We will pass the tipping point of a runaway climate change to warmer faster than most life can adapt. Entire eco-systems will be in failure, including the human niche. The change so long lasting that even well stocked bunkers will not last long enough. Cooperative independent villages will succumb to raids by mobs of cannibals or to subtle pollution effects like mercury buildup. Even conservative estimates put food production at a 33% decrease from global heating effects by mid-century. Other factors like groundwater depletions, and peak oil are not taken into account. Overharvesting of our oceans, surface water pollution, and soil depletion of numerous kinds, is also not considered. Everything ties to overpopulation. It has been known, with the means at hand to stop and reverse it, since the 1960s. Then global warming was known well by the early 1990s, again with insufficient action to reverse. Each also had its purpose driven naysayers who effectively have kept people either not doing anything, or completely in the dark to the horrible truths. They are still active, and will be until the crash, well past the tipping point of runaway global heating to mass extinctions.
Then after several million years, the planet will be back similar to the way it was, but without humans to use it all up and pollute it to death again.
I am just sorry that people that have understood and tried to teach others, and have lived a non-polluting lifestyle without the driving greed or lust of over-breeding, will be gone with the rest. I would like to believe that they go to a good afterlife, having done God's Will, while the others don't.

[Corey]

A bit of good news regarding illegals in Minnesota. The state governor as declared that the local police will start helping weeding out illegals and sending them home. Also requiring that workers prove citizenship or leave. Looking through the driver licence data base for duplicates and ousting the illegals.

Its a step, time will tell if its effective......

To the illegals: begone and stop using vital resources for the poor that native citizens need . Your not welcome here anymore due to your abuses of our generosity.

Legal immigrants are welcome with open arms.

[rc white]

It has long been true that not a small part of the standard of living that is enjoyed by those in the USA can be attributed to the abundance of cheap labour just over its southern borders that enters the country illegally and is willing to work for by western standards are very poor rates of pay and conditions.

Politicians know this of course as does business, they also know that a great deal of the economic success and prosperity in the country can be attributed to this, and if the illegal people are truly purged and sent home, and the borders really sealed, this will be reflected by a general lowering of living standards and business profit.

Therefor I predict some populist tub thumping, a lot of rhetoric, and token round up efforts, but otherwise business as usual.
We in Australia are in a way lucky because our local version of Mexico is several hundred miles away across an ocean, it is called Indonesia and is the most populous Islamic country in the world at 220 million.

If they decide to migrate South exactly what we could do about it I am not sure, but the problems with your southern border seem pale in comparison.
rcw

[dan]

"Global Warming is evil liberal hate talk. now even they must say something is here. they call it Climate Change. libs can not be right.

[Johnny Electriglide]

Originally Posted by dan

"Global Warming is evil liberal hate talk. now even they must say something is here. they call it Climate Change. libs can not be right.

I'm a Republican, conservative, not RINO like Bush and his ilk.
Human caused climate change has been happening with CO2 emissions by humans at 150 times that of geological processes. It has started melting tundra and releasing methane , a 26 times more powerful greenhouse gas, at geometrically increasing rates to the point where it is near a self-sustaining runaway process. It is too bad the Republican Party, and Democratic Party for that matter, are filled with low IQ ignorant slugs who think scientific measurements and projections are some sort of political hate talk.
The political solution is always reactionary, and too little, too late, and too expensive, with wild profiteering being the normal course of corrupt business.