Korean Job Discussion Forums

[re:cursive]

Watching "An Inconvenient Truth" last night has brought the issue of global warming back into the foreground of my consciousness. It was a big deal to me when I was 10 years old but for some reason in the years since then it has faded into the background.

I'm curious to hear what your opinions are on this issue and what you are doing as far as personal measures to counter the increasing problems?

Personally...I have sold my gas guzzling car and wont by a new vehicle until I can get one run by at least somewhat renewable energies. I'm thinking electric, hybrid or a vege oil system (unless that guy back home in Byron is really onto something with his water based engine).
I've also turned off my air conditioner for good and am purchasing energy efficient appliances.
Combine this with not eating meat and I think it is somewhat of a start.

So...please discuss.

[sundubuman]

oh the power of manipulative propaganda...

Floods, snow cause havoc in S. African cities

Thu Aug 3, 11:02 AM ET

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Heavy rain drenched large parts of South Africa's southern areas on Thursday, flooding roads and damaging houses in devastating storms, while deep snow forced mountain passes to close.
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Temperatures dropped to record lows for August as snow fell in industrial hub Johannesburg for the first time in eight years in what local residents say is an unusually severe winter.

The city saw a high of 7 degrees Celsius (44 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday -- the lowest daily high recorded in August -- while overnight temperatures dropped well below freezing in some parts of the country. Colder temperatures are expected this weekend.

"There is serious flooding, we are today flooding in most areas of Port Elizabeth," South African Weather Services forecaster Mandisi Manentsa-Titise told Reuters.

The southern coast city, about 800 km east of Cape Town, was the latest coastal area to suffer serious damage as up to 270 mm of rain fell in the 24 hours to early Thursday.

Police said four people drowned on Wednesday when their car washed away after a bridge collapsed near George, a small town 400 km east of Cape Town, famous for its lush golf courses.

Roads were flooded and thousands of people fled their homes in nearby tourist haven Knysna.

Tifendell ski resort in the southern Drakensberg mountains recorded 20 cm of snow on Wednesday, and transport officials closed one of the main passes through the mountains near Lesotho due to thick snow.

Weather Service spokesman Siyabonga Mthethwa said a deep low pressure was pumping moist air and gale-force winds onto the southern coast.

But despite the devastation and record rainfall, the rains and icy weather were not particularly out of the ordinary for a southern hemisphere winter in South Africa, he said.

"Although there have been some records broken it is a normal winter ... it is normal to get a low pressure system deepening quite fast and causing havoc along the coastal regions," Mthethwa added.

[sundubuman]

Rare snowfall across South Africa

Wed Aug 2, 2:00 PM ET

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Snow fell on South Africa's biggest city Johannesburg for the first time in 25 years as icy temperatures gripped vast swathes of the country, the weather office said.
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"It (the snow) is by no means freakish but I would certainly classify it as rare," said Kevin Rae, assistant manager of forecasting at the South African Weather Service in Pretoria.

Forecasters said snow was reported in the southern Johannesburg township of Soweto and the posh northern suburb of Sandton, as well as the nearby towns of Carletonville and Westonaria.

Johannesburg last had snow on September 11, 1981.

"Sleet has been recorded occasionally since then, but never snow," added climatologist Tracey Gill.

Bloemfontein, the capital of the central Free State province, got its first snow in 12 years, receiving 13 centimetres (5.2 inches).

Comparable widespread snow across the country had been recorded only twice in the past 20 years, in 1981 and 1988, said Rae.

Some welcomed the colder weather, however.

At the Tiffindell ski resort in the southern Drakensberg mountains of the Eastern Cape province, guests were elated.

"They are very excited," said the resort's chief snow-maker, Johan Smuts. "It is not every day that you get to see snow fall in Africa."

In warmer weather, Smuts oversees the manufacture of snow for the resort through a process involving water and air compression.

Tiffindell usually gets about five snowfalls a year, he said, but rarely 25 centimetres in one day, as on Tuesday.

The weather service posted a warning on its website of very cold temperatures for the southeastern high elevations of the country into Thursday.

It expected snowfalls to continue over areas of the central Free State, the Drakensberg and the Eastern Cape, but to have passed by Friday.

In the northern provinces, the snow was expected to clear by Wednesday afternoon, said Rae.

[re:cursive]

So the unprecedented increase in C02 levels means what then?
What about the breaking off of major antartic ice shelves? Melting of glaciers? Drying up of inland seas?

Please do not quote articles from the media in response to this.

Quote scientific articles if anything at all. I'm curious to see how some scientists if any can argue against the vast majority of scientists on the planet.

You do realise that global warming does not mean an increase in temperatures everywhere yeah? In some places it will get colder. In some places it will get a lot hotter. Weather patterns change, ocean currents change etc. This ecosystem is complex. It's going to be real cold if an ice age hits. Get your winter woolies ready.

[mindmetoo]

Global warming I think is true and it's man made. That said, global warming means the world will get a few degrees warmer. Really hot summers I don't think you can blame on global warming. There are a lot of people who would believe in global warming, save for the unsupported claims people are making tying a hot summer day to global warming. Global warming is bad, of course. Add all that fresh water into the ocean, disrupt the flow of warm water from the south Atlantic to the north Atlantic, and you're looking at chaos.

[Julius]

I've been following the debate for a while now. I think it may be an unstoppable force already.

If people stopped burning oil, flying planes and driving cars overnight it would be different, but of course thats impossible.

i saw a docu on discovery recently that showed what a dramatic effect 9/11 had on local weather in the US. All aircraft were grounded for 3 days nationwide and the climate showed a marked difference. Clear blue skies resulted in a temp increase by day and cooler nights. What was proven through global records from the past 30 years was that evaporation has declined by 10% in that time. Airborne pullution has blocked 10% of the suns rays from hitting earths surface. It was called "Global dimming".

The way things stand, I think we're looking at accelerating climate change and even more unexpected weather patterns around the globe. It is destabilising the natural food chain and natural cycles as well as forcing farmers to change what crops they can grow etc over whole regions.

It may already be out of our hands. yes there have been a lot more floods, rising sea levels, and damaging storms. Most of the worlds population is urban-dwelling nowadays and protected from the reality of this.

The worst is yet to come, and may not actually be that far off. Many of the worlds low-lying major cities could be under water by 2030, according to that documentary.

[EFLtrainer]

An interesting point is whether the proverbial "tipping point" is a severe change over a very, very short time frame or a severe change over a relatively (in the years of mankind, i.e. a lifetime) longer period. If you are familiar with Chaos theory, for "tipping point" think bifurcation.

Here's the thing with bifurcation: it's instantaneous. One moment you've got perfect balance, the next, complete (seeming) chaos. The simplest way to see this is to turn on a faucet slowly. Notice how the stream is nearly perfectly smooth. Slowly increase the flow till it becomes chaotic. Notice how that change is nearly instantaneous.

That's a potential tipping point.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon/bifurcation.html

Imagine that as weather.

Hmmm....

[pastis]

[Julius]

Sundubuman: I think your argument is that "how can there be global waming when some places appear to be getting colder?".

Firstly, remember that these new freak weather patterns are signs of instability and rapid change. They are not reassuring. You could say "why is the antarctic increasing in mass? The answer is-

"While both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets as a whole are gaining some mass in their cold interiors because of increasing snowfall, they are losing ice along their peripheries. That indicates that scientists may have underestimated the rate of disintegration they face in the future, Oppenheimer said. Greenland's current net ice loss is equivalent to an annual 0.008 inch sea level rise."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801021.html

EFLTrainer- talking of the tipping point, it may only take as little as 4 more degrees fahrenheit.

"Earth's average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would "imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."

"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something."


Note that 2005 was the warmest year on record-again. I think its accelerating faster than even the scientists are predicting. The process of "bifurcation" may take only a decade-a split second in geological time.

[flip ant]

Please excuse my naivete on this, but haven't there been climate changes on the earth before? Who was to blame then? Does our planet really need humans to change its climate?

It really seems to me that those who are politically liberal are very conservative on this one.

[diablo3]

Well, there is another theory of what global warming will do, and that is us heading quickly to another ice age. If you have heard the theory before, one way of distributing heat is through water and salt plays a big part of controlling the flow of heat through water The ice melted by global warming slowly dilutes the salt thus lessens the water's affect to distribute heat. When not enough heat is distributed, well it will get very very cold.

At the same time, there may be weather patterns changing as we are witnessing unusual temperatures for the last 2 years or so. Maybe this one consequence of nature changing or the first signs of something bigger to happen, possibly caused by humans.

As one would say "you cannot beat nature".

[Junior]

[flip ant]

[EFLtrainer]

This is simple: the issue of global warming is not whether there are natural cycles, it is to what extent are we increasing the magnitude and speed of the changes.

The dinosaurs did not die out overnight, nor did the great mammals. But the changes were geologically fast. To repeat, the issue is the extent to which we may be shortening the cycles to a lifetime, or a couple lifetimes as oppossed to thousands, even millions, of years.

Which would you prefer: 100 years to adapt to massive global change, or 1000? 10,000?

[Octavius Hite]

The dinosaurs probably died to due an asteriod strike, which in one event would have changed the climate for thousands of years, so dont be so ignorant. Of course dinosaurs didn't breath that much CO2 or other chemicals into the atmosphere.

I challenge anyone who has been to Beijing or Shanghai and tell me that air pollution caused by oil and coal cannot destroy your environment. Now just imagine if the whole globe was like that, its pretty friggin scary even if you dont believe we will all end up living on atolls and fighting Dennis Hooper in the Exxon Valdez.