Nobody knows how bad it will get by 2100, not even by 2050. There are too many uncertainties. Even climate science in general and the IPCC specifically appear to be close to the limits of understanding climate change and the ability to project future scenarios.

The Kyoto accord is null and void. Some but not all countries adhere to it voluntarily but almost none has yet to achieve the GHG reductions stipulated in Kyoto. The last UNFCCC conference in Durban agreed on a goal of reaching a new agreement by 2015. It would have to include all emerging economies and primarily China. As a researcher of climate policy (not climate change) and as frequent attendant of the UNFCCC conferences I would hypothesize that given the distance between what has been agreed so far and what must be agreed by 2015 is vast, and that 2018-20 would be more realistic objective.

The resolutions of the UNFCCC conferences consistently include a paragraph on the parties' commitment to a 20C rise in global temperatures at most. This has become pure rhetoric; there is no way to keep the temperature rise below 20C even now. My second hypothesis: after signing an agreement on GHG reductions, the UNFCCC will encounter increasing demands for adaptation funds. 100 billion dollars have been committed to the "Green Climate Fund" until 2020. This sum is laughable compared to the means that will be needed to adapt and finance recovery from the so-called natural disasters we witness already today.

And as Nicholas Stern has informed us, this will massively decrease global GDP, the raison d'etre of the free market economy's very existence and its prosperity. That will wake everybody up!

I think that the answer to the question "how bad will things get by 2050 and 2100?" is (1) nobody knows, we only know that things will get worse, not better; and (2) and if we do not act soon they will be worse yet. The real question is how long it will take the international community, alias politicians, to absorb reality, and to start doing something about climate change instead of jabbering about it.

Sorry for the long answer. Avi Gottlieb, Tel Aviv University

It is true as I believe nothing much is being done to protect nature. The use of plastic is still not under control. Millions of trees are being cut everyday to generate paper for ads...

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to increase unless the billions of tons of our annual emissions decrease substantially. Increased concentrations are expected to:

Increase Earth's average temperature

Influence the patterns and amounts of precipitation

Reduce ice and snow cover, as well as permafrost

Raise sea level

Increase the acidity of the oceans

Yes, it is very serious. Due to climate change my city has lost agriculture. Dust covers the city. We have lost a big lake because of changing rain patterns (Hamoon).

While it is true that human kind is adding to climate change, there also appears to be other forces in play as well. If you look at ice core data available now, you would find that the earth today is considerably colder. During the middle ages the earth warmed to temperatures that we are seeing today and in the last two centuries we had some of the coldest climate in human history. If you look at the bigger picture, that is data available through tree rings, you will find that the temperature has actually oscillated pretty frequently during the last two thousand years. The other issue that most climatologist don't take into account as well is natural forcing, such as volcanic activities and earth quakes. I would highly recommend getting away from the current model of looking at just 150 years of recorded history and starting to look at longer time series that capture more. Climate is a long-memory process and thus in some instances, 150 years is not even one cycle of it.

Take a look at the IPCC's reports. There you can find the evidence and the current understanding of the problem of climate change.

Increased tropical cyclones, tidal surges, depressions and signals. Seriously hamper coastal fishers livelihoods. Increase displace people and insecure livelihoods.

With my initial assessment of the food necessity reveals people will need to spend at least one third of their total earnings just for food alone by 2050. I.e., 1/3 for food, 1/3 even more for health and do rest all with remaining 1/3 of the income...

I am not sure we understand, let alone can model climate change. Some things appear to be cyclical in nature. The dust bowl and drought of the 1930's has great similarity to today. In 1974, Time Magazine and noted scientists warned of a coming ice age. I guess they're all retired now so we can ignore that and talk of global warming.

We humans have been changing the Earth for as long as we've been around. Climate change is a worry, but so is the loss of fresh water supplies, food shortages, and the political unrest that follows them. If you want to see real climate change, wait until the first nuke is used in a terrorist act. I predict this will happen long before we get too warm.

UN IPPC abstracted scenarios of global climate change induced by human. do you use it? or maybe this change could be considered as periodic geo-cosmic process?

A recent documentary I saw suggested that the rate of thawing of ice in antarctica has gone up perceptibly over the past decade, and this is presumably due to global warming according to the scientists. Think of 2050 and 2100? At this rate of climate tinkering I wonder if there will be any ice at all in those icy oceans by 2100 ?!

It does not matter what the cause is and there are plenty of reasons to believe that human activity is playing a major role the problem is what to do about it. Reducing our use of finite carbon sources of fuel is good for several reasons. Moving from coal to natural gas is a start but not a solution. Increasing the efficiency of use of nitrate fertiliser reduces water pollution not just nitrous oxide to the atmosphere. The effects of global warming are not equally distributed. There will be countries that are net beneficiaries on a local scale (Canada, Russia) whilst being hugely threatened by ice melts. Every time we get something turn up that is not expected (like this summer's diversion of the jet stream to give Western Europe the wettest summer on record) then the climate models get adapted to explain it. Our models get better but then climate change is throwing up all sorts of new patterns and systems.

The short answer is that things will get bad in some places but better in others.

Things are getting worse than IPCC predicted, so, unless there is massive international action curbing CO2 emissions (which is as likely as the proverbial snowball's chance in hell), things are indeed going to get bad.

I am not sure if someone already pointed you to this video by Ken Caldeira. It is very nice and also very worrisome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce2OWROToAI&feature=plcp

My take is that predicting something 100 years form now is very difficult, so you need to stay in the high probability cases to gain credibility. Now, the high probability cases are looking more and more like stuff we never thought was possible 10 years ago.

Chandra,

how do you know how much income will people have in 2050 or 2100? And how do you know the probable change in the price of food relative to income or relative to the price of non-food goods and services?

Yes and indeed, we are in a big trouble if we do not act tactfully now. Policy makers and decison makers must humbly accept this challenge and we can start working from now. The fact is, nobody can predict with precision , how gloomy things will look like in 20 to 80 years from now.Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has necessitated the need to study CO2 efflux under varied agronomic cultural practices. Carbon dioxide constitutes a major component of the greenhouse gases that could potentially lead to global warming and eventually climate change. We must act now!!!

I agree with Toby that things will get bad in some places but better in others. Moreover, whatever we are predicting is without taking into consideration of adaptation measure. Please do not forget "Need is the mother of Invention", and people will come up with bright solutions to fight the impacts of climate change and will learn to live with it.

thnx

Sushil Gupta

it is hard to summarise the various uncertainties and complexities of climate change into such a short overview, you may need to focus the question a little more. Uncertainty ranges for the future across all climate change impacts broaden hugely towards the latter half of the 21st century, driven by out inability to predict human behaviour nor exactly how sensitive the Earth system is to anthropogenic gases. What we can say is that we are 'loading the dice' towards more extreme and (from our perception of human history) unusual climate and weather events by significantly altering the atmosphere and oceans. What we will see (though the rate and intensity of change is uncertain) is increased energy in the Earth system, leading to heightened sea surface temperatures, associated intense storm/hurricane/typhoon events and thermal expansion of water leading to sea level rise (bolstered by ice melt). Extreme heat events and the associated food /water insecurity are likely to be the most obvious shorter-term climate catastrophes, and they will disproportionately affect the world's poor and vulnerable. A commenter above talks of things getting worse in some places and better in others; it is important to remember that societies and communities developed largely as a result of their suitability to the local conditions (particularly the climate) and have used that climate to develop and thrive. As climate modes change due to the imbalance of energy in the system many large populations of people will be living in unsuitable climates (desertification is an example of this), leading to mass migration and conflict as resources per capita become more scarce. How 'bad' climate change will be largely depends on the ability for human society to adapt to the changes to our environments we have brought on; it should be remembered that most other life on the planet is not so adaptable (forests, for example) as shown by the mass species extinctions we are seeing today even with the relatively small changes to climate thus far

also, in reply to David Stack, I think credible talk of keeping the average global temperature below +2 degrees (i.e. not just political messaging) has largely been discarded now, we have essentially gone beyond that point already given the ~30 year lag between when co2 is emitted and it ceasing to have an impact on the greenhouse effect. The 2 degrees target being determined 'safe' is questionable anyway, given the consequences for food and water security in swathes of populations at that temperature

The sustaining capacity of the unimproved global food system was probably only 4 billion people. Three billion extra people are fed because of the Haber Bosch process. The next 3 billion will also be fed through the synthesis of Nitrate from the atmosphere. The nitrous oxide portion of anthropogenic gasses will inevitably rise even if we can cut carbon emissions. As people see the benefits of extra crop growth they inevitably overuse ammonium nitrate but this leads to excess emissions. We are in serious trouble unless we get some mitigation in place.

You are totaly right:) !!!

I'm impressed that David has the guts to give a rational answer that includes the politically incorrect acknowledgement that we don't really know. I hope he won't get attacked by formulaic true believers from either side, but he should be prepared to be. My own opinion (which I will not attempt to defend rigorously) is that humans in general are either too stupid or too lazy to tackle complex problems without trying to reduce them to simple slogans resembling religious catechisms. I also think that we overestimate our ability to make changes: we certainly have the means to change our environment, but we have relatively little capacity to change our own behavior. The average North American is not driving 100 km/day out of lack of concern for the environment, s/he is doing it to stay afloat in a world governed by corporations that care only about profits. And the corporations care only about profits because their shareholders would move their money elsewhere if they didn't. Everything is connected. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." It is pointless to demand that we stop doing "bad" things; the right question to take seriously is, "What could we be doing differently, and what will it cost us?" There is no free ride out of this mess.

Regarding the impact of climate change on food and agriculture:

1. IPCC 2007 reports that the impact on agriculture would be minimal or negligible until mid century, and could only become significant in the second half of the century: if total warming along the century would be about 3°C, the increase would be some 1.5° by mid century, and that increase would be generally beneficial. The main reasons are:

(1) most crops (and crop varieties) are adapted to a range of temperatures around the ones prevailing today, and in fact withstand year-to-year changes in temperatures and humidity that are larger than changes projected to occur due to climate change. In most cases, other related varieties exist that are adapted for slightly higher temperatures or slightly drier (or wetter) conditions, and those other varieties are often actually grown at some nearby agro-ecological zone.

(2) in a large fraction of agricultural lands in the world, the main limitation is cold, not heat: enormous extensions of land in temperate zones (North America and Eurasia, and Southern South America) would increase their yield (or become cultivable), or are already experiencing that, due to gradually warmer weather and longer no-frost periods.

(3) crops feed on atmospheric carbon dioxide, which they capture through photosynthesis; more CO2 causes C3 crops (like rice or wheat) to increase yields by increased photosynthesis, and causes C4 crops (like maize) to economize water, both to significant extent.

2. Some "naive" assessments of impact on agriculture simply estimate what would happen to a crop variety grown today at a certain location, if temperature or humidity at that location would change to hotter or drier. This is (perhaps) adequate in order to measure the impact on wild vegetation, but agriculture is not wild vegetation. To be affected that way, that particular variety of crop would have to be sown and grown by some actual farmer in 2050 or 2100 at that particular location; this would not happen if conditions change: people would plant other varieties there, or obtain food from other areas. Measuring the "potential" impact of warming on crops "not considering adaptation" is nonsense: agriculture is itself a form of adaptation to prevailing ecological conditions, and production in 2050 or 2100 cannot be modeled unless farmer behavior is included in the model.

The only methods that fill this requirement are Ricardian models (which, however, do not include the effect of increased atmospheric CO2 on plants), and "integrated assessment" models combining crop models, agro-ecological zoning, downscaled climate models, technical change models, and socio-economic models (of production, population, income and trade); the IIASA in Austria is the main world center specializing in this kind of complex assessment, that is also the major source used by FAO to prepare their own assessments.

3. Until now, ALL serious estimates of the impact of climate change on agriculture and food consumption indicate that the impact would be marginal (a few percentage points, usually less than 3%), and that the absolute level of food production would enormously increase, even under extremely conservative estimates about the various factors involved (technical change in agriculture, population growth, income growth, impact of climate change and so on).

When I say ALL, I mean Ricardian estimates such as Mendelsohn 2000, and mostly the more sophisticated Integrated Assessment models such as Fischer et al (various dates, see refs below), and many others. Even the most negative reports end up predicting just a small reduction in food production due to climate change, and that reduction is relative to the level of output that would prevail at the middle or the end of the century, which would be several times as large as today. Per capita income would also be far higher, even under pessimistic economic assumptions (FAO's reckons that world per capita GDP would triple between 2000 and 2050, under quite conservative assumptions; it is also foreseen that income would grow faster in developing than developed countries, as is already happening today).

The recent assessment by FAO and a group of experts (FAO 2011) include not only the direct impact of climate change but also the indirect impact of mitigating fossil fuel use by using motor fuel made with crops (a very foolish idea, indeed). Under the extremely precautionary model used by FAO, and extraordinarily pessimistic hypotheses about climate change and use of biofuels, Fischer 2011 (included in FAO 2011 report) estimates that the level of worldwide undernourishment (% people consuming less than minimum amount of dietary energy) would fall steadily from about 13% today to about 6% in 2050 and a negligible 1-2% by 2080. For developing countries alone, the decrease would be from 16% to 9.7% to 6% respectively (from 17% to 9.8% to 6.7% in South Asia). Considering or not considering climate change and biofuels changes these figures very little: world undernourishment by 2050 would be 7% under the most extreme biofuel scenario, and 5.8% without either climate change or biofuels. For the 2080s the differences are even less significant (respectively 2% with and 1.5% without the effects of climate and biofuels). Notice that FAO estimates of undernourishment are significant only above 5%, as a consequence of natural variability in food needs across individuals, and intrinsic imprecision of measurement: an estimate of 2% is functionally equivalent to zero.

I am in the final phases of work on a new book on this matter (see refs to my previous work in my LinkedIn profile). Would gladly share the text once finished.

I am including a partial discussion draft from the chapter dealing with the above matters.

Besides the envisaged effects on food, it is necessary to be prudent in other presumed impacts of climate change. The climate projections are themselves uncertain, and the impacts actually projected by the IPCC are in many respects not so alarming as commentary appearing in the popular press. For instance, a popular probable impact is the rise of sea level. One would read in newspapers that the seas would rise several meters, drowning millions as the water reaches the tenth floor of Manhattan skycrapers. But the actual IPCC projection for 2100, in its several scenarios, varies from 28 to 42 cm (i.e. about 2.8 to 4.2 millimeters per year), each estimated with a margin of variation across various climate models used for quantification of each scenario. The central projection for the scenario with the highest expected rise, 42cm, is the average of various models predicting between 26 and 59 cm along the entire century. The lowest projection, 24cm, comes from model results with a range from 18 to 38cm. That level of sea rise could be surely a problem at some low-lying locations such as New Orleans, Southern Bangladesh, or Venice, but there is no need to exaggerate if one appreciates one's own credibility. If a coastal area has a very low gradient (1%, meaning one meter rise in land level for every 100 meters away from the high-tide waterline), a rise of 30-40 cm would mean that the water would advance some 30-40 meters from its current position; many coastal areas have higher gradients. And the rise would occur gradually over a century: Plenty of time to add 50 cm to levees, or to move some people some short distance inland.

References:

FAO, 2011. Looking ahead in World Food and Agriculture: Perspectives to 2050. FAO, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2280e/i2280e00.htm.

Fischer G., M.Shah & H.van Velthuizen, 2002a. Climate change and agricultural vulnerability. A special report prepared by IIASA as a contribution to the World Summit on Sustainable De-velopment, Johannesburg. Laxenburg (Austria): IIASA. http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/PUB/Documents/XO-02-001.pdf.

Fischer, G., M.Shah, F.N.Tubiello & H.van Velthuizen, 2005. Socio-economic and climate change impacts on agriculture: an integrated assessment, 1990–2080. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series B, 360:2067-2083.

Fischer, Günther; Eva Hizsnyik, Sylvia Prieler, Mahendra Shah and Harrij van Velthuizen, 2009. Bio-fuels and food security. IIASA, Laxenburg (Austria). http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Homepage-News-Highlights/OFID_IIASAPam_38_bio.pdf.

Fischer, Günther, 2011. World Food and Agriculture to 2030/50: How do climate change and bioenergy alter the long-term outlook for food, agriculture and resource availability? Included in FAO 2011.

Mendelsohn, Robert, 2000. Measuring the effect of climate change on developing-country agriculture. In FAO 2000, Two essays on climate change and agriculture - A developing country perspective. FAO Economic and Social Development Papers No.145. Fao, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x8044e/x8044e00.htm.

Mendelsohn, Robert & Ariel Dinar, 2009. Climate change and agriculture: An economic analysis of global impacts, adaptation and distributional effects. Cheltenham (UK): Eduard Elgar.

Nidaghatta Gangadhar,

Antarctica ice mass is INCREASING: the melting at some coastal locations, chiefly the Peninsula (the northernmost point) and some ice shelves in Western Antarctica, are more than made up by ice gains in the vast interior. Global warming would accentuate this process by increasing sea water evaporation, some of which would turn into more clouds and consequently into increased rainfall and snowfall over Antarctica. According to IPCC 2007, expected net ice accumulation in Antarctica would DETRACT about 10-12 cm from sea level between 1980-99 and 1990-99.

How about the effects of farming practices on climate change? I'm told that the Sahara was once fertile farmland but it got used up by humans. Draining the Everglades caused oxidation of about 7 m of peat over several thousand square km. That's a lot of carbon into the air. Some years ago, Freeman Dyson pointed out that adoption of no-till methods might grow close to 1 mm of topsoil per year, sequestering immense tonnage of carbon in a beneficial and safe place. Forests are good too. But if we try to change our farming practices, maybe there will be a temporary food shortage as we make all possible mistakes; will we have the courage to stick it out?

Certainly we are... Since every COP coming on line, now for the 18th time soon, things have deteriorated from bad to worse... & on we go. If one takes the discussion concerning the average change in global temperature, the topic is not anymore whether it is natural or human-made (this is history !!), rather, it 2 or 3 degrees Celsius. Keep in mind that this is going on while almost every month a new factor weighs in (that was not considered before) which adds to the severity of causes of global warming.

I'm afraid the situation of the story of climate change & the fake attempts of facing it, is like the story of using fossil fuels.... it is not the will & the technical capacity that is lacking to stop it....NO... It is the Money & Economics that goes with it !!!!

I answer the question with this special material: http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/SOF2012-English.pdf ;)

Regards! =)

Nobody knows how bad it will get by 2100, not even by 2050. There are too many uncertainties. Even climate science in general and the IPCC specifically appear to be close to the limits of understanding climate change and the ability to project future scenarios.

The Kyoto accord is null and void. Some but not all countries adhere to it voluntarily but almost none has yet to achieve the GHG reductions stipulated in Kyoto. The last UNFCCC conference in Durban agreed on a goal of reaching a new agreement by 2015. It would have to include all emerging economies and primarily China. As a researcher of climate policy (not climate change) and as frequent attendant of the UNFCCC conferences I would hypothesize that given the distance between what has been agreed so far and what must be agreed by 2015 is vast, and that 2018-20 would be more realistic objective.

The resolutions of the UNFCCC conferences consistently include a paragraph on the parties' commitment to a 20C rise in global temperatures at most. This has become pure rhetoric; there is no way to keep the temperature rise below 20C even now. My second hypothesis: after signing an agreement on GHG reductions, the UNFCCC will encounter increasing demands for adaptation funds. 100 billion dollars have been committed to the "Green Climate Fund" until 2020. This sum is laughable compared to the means that will be needed to adapt and finance recovery from the so-called natural disasters we witness already today.

And as Nicholas Stern has informed us, this will massively decrease global GDP, the raison d'etre of the free market economy's very existence and its prosperity. That will wake everybody up!

I think that the answer to the question "how bad will things get by 2050 and 2100?" is (1) nobody knows, we only know that things will get worse, not better; and (2) and if we do not act soon they will be worse yet. The real question is how long it will take the international community, alias politicians, to absorb reality, and to start doing something about climate change instead of jabbering about it.

Sorry for the long answer. Avi Gottlieb, Tel Aviv University

I think the things will not be so bad, our capacity of adaptation is awesome. I believe that the environment will suffer much more for a short time(20-40 years), but the human will find ways to survive in a relative comfort, especially the rich guys, lol. In a long time we'll find new ways of systems. (policy, economic and suitable natural resources exploration). Everything depends of education and good rules. We're in a time of large and rapid changes.

yes sir. Many water resources had impacted by climate change but we don't have any more answer for explanation.

Avi,

it is true that "as Nicholas Stern has informed us, this will massively decrease global GDP". But the 2007 Stern report to the UK government has been widely criticized for its flawed economic analysis, especially his use of incoherent discount rates and poor modeling of exchange rates, besides poorly based assumptions on technological change (which go against the grain of observed trends).

On the other hand, for CO2 emissions to reach the levels envisaged, and thus cause the projected climate change, it is a necessary condition that GDP increases at a fairly good rate (between 2.1% and 3.2% per year are assumed in IPCC SRES scenarios, used in their reports of 2001 and 2007): without such GDP growth all the time in the envisaged future, there would be no such increase in anthropogenic GHG emissions. In fact, GDP is growing even faster, at about 3-4% per year on a worldwide scale, but its energy intensity is diminishing faster than expected (because of faster growth in service industries than in the production and transportation of physical goods, plus increases in technological energy-wise efficiency).

If GDP grows at 2% per year, it would increase sevenfold in 100 years (an increase of 600%). At 3%, it would multiply by 19 (an increase of 1800%). Population, as per the (usually overstated) UN projections would grow from the current 7 billion to just over 10 billion, i.e. by about 40%. Therefore total GDP and also GDP per capita, in any case, would be much (very much) higher than today if GHG emissions grow as expected. The increase would be much faster in developing countries.

Note: New scenarios prepared for the Fifth IPCC report (due in 2013) are simply assumed trajectories of emission, not grounded on any assumption about GDP or population (which is good, because previous assumptions were poorly based) but the pace of emissions implicitly assumes growth to continue. If any reduction is entertained in their analysis, it is a reduction entailed by efforts of mitigation (i.e., to reduce emissions humankind "should" reduce its output, income and standard of living), but that is not projected to happen under any scenario.

Also, man can speculate on this question. Scientists don't exactly know what cause the atmospheric or surface temperature increase. What we know, we know that increase of atmospheric CO2 accelerates the increase and phenological anomaly of both surface and atmospheric temperature. This increase and anomaly effects several ecological and atmospherical processes. We had a long term project about the effect of CO2 increase on photosynthetic activity at several plant species. it is well known, that the activity has sigmoidal relationship with the CO2 increase. Several plant species obtained their maximum activity by ca. 600ppm. The interesting results were how a big effect can have the stomatal activity and the effect of transpiration on latent heating. If i wrong, please correct me. There is no vegetation, chemical transport or atmospheric model which can predict that effect or include that processes. I also currently working on modelling of temperature effect on phenological phases like start and end of growing season at deciduous plant species. The effect can be detected up to 20 days from year to year. That can effect the seasonality of CO2 uptake and also the stomatal activity which strongly effect the latent heating. To predict the effect of climate change on biospherical, atmospherical processes, we have to consider such relevant processes in our models. Up to date, there is no relevant prediction about the effect of climate change on the biogeochemical cycles, then we also dont well know the interaction between the biogeochemical cycles.

Best Regards,

Abdulla Sakalli

Chalmers University of Technology

How can we integrate and been living with climate change and impact.

Many of the climate impacts expected by 2050 and, even more, by 2100, depend on the choices we make that will determine future emissions. "Warming World: Impacts by Degree" (published by the US National Academy of Science, based on the longer report, "Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations and Impacts over Decades to Millennia") is an excellent resource that clearly lays out the extent to which impacts depend on global mean temperature and, in turn, on emissions. It includes figures showing how Arctic sea ice loss, crop yields, heat wave frequencies and other impacts scale with global temperature, as well as how global temperature scales with the rate and magnitude of anthropogenic carbon emissions.

http://dels.nas.edu/materials/booklets/warming-world

Dear Hector, I am familiar with the criticism of the Stern report and concur with many. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that the projections about future economic growth are at least partially grounded in the continued use of fossil fuels, perhaps at a lower pace.. Even ecological modernization theory admits that the transformation to renewable energy resources will be much too slow to prevent this. And if Stern is wrong about the numbers, he is right about the principle. This has happened before: to Malthus and Ehrlich about population growth and food scarcity; to Meadows & Meadows about the limits of growth and so on. I am sorry to say this: the numbers may be wrong, the gist of the problem remains, there are good reasons to be pessimistic even for an optimist like me.

In some part of the world climate change already taking its effect. For example coastal area in Bangladesh. Due to increased frequency of extreme climatic events ppl livelihoods and rebuilding process badly hampered time and again. Adaptation program from state level is not sufficient and effective enough to cope with changing environment due to economic, political, social , ecological reasons. Ppl at private level are showing extraordinary innovation to adapt. Even after all these efforts things are getting worse .....

My reading of the numbers from the scientists rather then the Economics Department in London school of Economics is that the CO2 emissions are now 396 or 397ppm and if it continues - and increasing due to hot wars, dropping bombs, machinery made for more wars etc ... the additional pollution will quicken the pace. I get 10 to 20 years for an increase of 1-2 Centigrade. The unity of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, UK the Turks and the Israelis in wanting to bring down Syria's government will add more then usual. So too all the increase in US sales of weapons to all sorts of people to keep the economy of the expanding Empire with a higher income, will contribute to more than the usual so-called normal increase of CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide. " No body knows" argument is one of those throw-ways to avoid (a). the existing complicity of exponential activity -symbiotic, synergistic effects and then as above (b) the increase of hot wars with maximum pollution increase at a higher rate than industrial production expansion. The denial of the US and the NYTimes to admit that perhaps the draught and the "heat wave" (similar to one in 1936) is another example of weather patterns coming hard down on agriculture. Depressing? Another throw away - not if you happen to observe nature -not the neo-con economists or the carbon clubs diffuse statements. If nature is abused, and exploited to the maximum to provide jobs, and more consumer goods (and wars) for an increased population and excess commodities for the American Dream/Fantasy -- then what is to be expected? Exploiting people causes trouble that guns will take care of, but if the glaciers are melting (Lonnie G. Thompson) who do you shoot?

Does anyone know where can I find "reliable" predictions for river flow according to the expected changes in precipitation?

Hello Sir,

In my point of view although climate is changing and species are getting adapted to it and most are also getting extinct which has already resulted in tsunamis and katrinas in most part of the world but at the same time these changes had been occurring since the world has been created.

Nature teaches us balance and I believe that currently we are disturbing the balance which will definitely result in some outcome that can be bad or good but likely chances are that it will be worse but the only hope is when we make our participation in bringing awareness to general public that some act can result in healthy environment around them and eventually in the whole world and this is the only area which can unite the whole world on one stance that we need to get rid of this pollution by funding it on a large scale and saving the earth.

Yes, we are in verious trouble. I had periodically reviewed IPCC plenary session per working group, data, observations, findings and conclusios are strongly correlated as per spatio-temporal hypothesis. The USGS, NOAA, IMO and related institutions have similarities in their observations and findings. However there are several uncdertaiinties that must be uncovered. Thus, there is an urgent call to synergize Risjk Reduction Master Plan per country, using risk = hazard x vulnerability x exposure as baseline.

The United States represents around 24% of the world’s carbon emissions (Telesetsky, 1999), being a well-off country its participation and co-operation essential for an effective global treaty. Many developing countries supported by the E.U. were asking the U.S. to commit to a 15% reduction in GHGs (Martinez, Web access) but committed to a 7% reduction in exchange for an agreement to its “flexibility mechanisms” allowing to meet half of its reduction target (not through reducing its actual emissions), but by financing emission reductions in other countries. Each year, the food system utilizes about 19% of the total fossil energy burned in the United States (Pimentel, 2006). However, by 2050 Europe could cut most of its GHGs and is looking for clean technologies by cost-efficient means (European Commission, 2010 last update) for low-carbon economy as “Green Growth” in the sectors of sustainable renewable energy, energy-efficient building materials, hybrid and electric cars, smart grid equipment, low-carbon power generation and carbon capture-storage technologies. By these means Europe will be creating 1.5million additional jobs by 2020 apart from carbon credits.

I FEEL THESE CAN BE DONE AND ARE QUITE SIMPLER BUT THERE IS POLITICAL LOBBY IN ALL NATIONS:

1. Industrializations that can shift over to biomass energy sectors, windmill and solar sectors to cut down on fossil fuels, coal, wood charcoal, and legal/illegal cut down of forest wood.

2. All type of domestic services based on fossil fuels can shift over to sustainable and renewable energies like solar, wind and non-food crop bio-fuels and even from biomass (Bucpapaj et al., 2012).

3. Instead of intensive agricultural systems a shift to economical agricultural productions in a given area with multi-cropping patterns concentrating on native pulses and cereals as food crops and fodder crops for carbohydrates and proteins can be considered.

4. Instead of lavish, showy, fashionable vegetables high on investment, one can concentrate and rely on health maintenance vegetables like root crops (carrots, beets, radish, turnips, potatoes etc.), fruit crops (brinjals, tomatoes, gourds etc.), leafy crops (all type of native greens), seed crops (all type of beans), tree crops (all native fruits like apples and olives) favorable by that particular regional climate can be grown without intensification of chemical fertilization and fossil fuels in terms of inputs and transportation and with less water utilizability can be adapted.

5. Fallowing and regeneration of lands are a mandatory under intensive chemical fertilization which can be implementable on crucial planning and adaptation without hampering food productions.

6. Instead of mushrooming of urbanization, stress can be laid on rural improvements with long term aspirations that add value to the sustainability to food productive sector and ecosystem maintenance adding on carbon credits to serve as successful cost effective measures with renewable reliable sustainability.

7. Transformations of food crop wastes, domestic wet garbage that goes in for landfills, sewage water and sludge, collected agro-industrial effluents and wastes (like olive mill waste waters) through nature-friendly low-cost semi-scientific aerobic composting and/or vermicomposting cottage industries (Sunitha, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2012b, 2012e, 2012f, 2012h) can curb down the emission levels of methane gas apart from building wealth of the cultivable and barren soils into organic maintenance (bio-geo-chemical cycles) to save on minimized cost on import and manufacture of chemical fertilizers which in turn lessens the burden of cost spent on pesticides and fungicides (through synthesis, manufacture and product transportations).

8. Instead of burning of woody and non-woody biomass of natural resources that can otherwise act as carbon sink, one can rely on waste lands, deforested lands, mined lands and other barren lands (unsuitable for food crop productions) can be converted into non-food crop farming for bio-fuel productions like bamboo cultivation practices ( for sustainable renewable energy as “green coal” (Bucpapaj et al., 2012) for industrial and domestic purposes as greener adaptations to overcome ecological pressures caused/causing by GHGs.

9. Controlling manufacturing sectors in the line of plastics and similar allied products and replacement wherever possible with bamboo and rattans (as eco-friendly) must happen by the ruling government instead of lobbying to create awareness among fellow men to underutilize or stop utilizing plastics slogans.

community-based and local knowledge render prime insights into the on-going changes in the environment which in turn supports broader-scale scientific research. Similarly state-of-the-art implementations are mandatory instead of solely dependant on international policies that may not completely be approachable. Community based organizations are required to bring in changes to overcome and to manage already changed in ecological pressures.

Undeniably humans have a massive influence on the health of Planet Earth since the industrial- and green revolution. A major portion of humans influence can be attributed to changes in land-use patterns. Inaddition, humans have overwhelmed the balancing forces of the mother ''Nature'. The scientific link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming is beyond doubt now. Since the industrial revolution (around 1950s), greenhouse gas emissions (in particular CO2, methane and N2) have been increasing, and at an alarming levels since last century. With the current level of emissions (30 Gt CO2/y) and based on projected emission scenarios, the CO2 levels are expected to reach about 510 ppm by 2050 and to 700 ppm by 2100 (to give readers an idea, CO2 levels were 300 ppm in 1950s) (PNAS 109:13156-13162). Thus, CO2 levels in the atmosphere are expected to be doubled since 1955 by 2050, within a century of human interference. Also N2O emissions are expected to be quadrupled by 2050 from the current levels as the nitrogen fertilizer applications to agriculture are expected to be doubled during this time. Global methane emissions which are at 35 MtCH4/yr are exepcted to reach 1000 MtCH4/yr. It must be mentioned that the global warming potential for CH4 is 50 times that of CO2; for N2O, the global warming potential is about 300 times that of CO2. This is the likely scenerio expected on greenhouse gas emisisons by 2100 and the expected increase in earth temperature (i.e. global warming) can be beyond reasonable doubt. To reverse this trend, i.e. to stabilize CO2 levels around 350 ppm and to minimize N2O and methane emisisons may be within the human's technical ability, but is a major challenge to humanity - a major effort is needed to educate our populations on the impending catastrophe from the greenhouse gas emisisons and the associated global warming and its consequences to follow. We may have to change our way of life, way of thinking and require quantum jumps in developing next-generation technologies to reduce CO2 emissions, and N2O emissions from agriculture (for ex. PNAS 106:17302-17307). The challenge is that scientists can see this problem, but whether the our society and political establishment has the will and wisdom to find solutions.

Based on the winter solstice the indigenous farmers of Peruvian and Bolivian Andes forecast the timing and quantity of rains and size of their harvest in the following year (Nakashima et al, 2012). Traditional climate forecasting rituals are also common even to this day in India especially among regular crop harvests of vegetables of 2 – 3 crops per annum in a given same piece of land since several centuries (Sunitha, 2011d). Traditional lunar-based calendars are also important in the structuring of traditional agricultural practices. In Tuvalu, traditional seasonal calendars have been used as the basis for interpreting weather, including extreme weather events (IPMPCC, 2011). ACIA, 2005 has a record of 1000 page Report on Climate impact assessment incorporating traditional knowledge in its design from the outset. Such similar reports are an urgent calls in every nation especially those have a history of ancient civilizations

My contribution is on Africans! How are Africans coping with climate change? Most cases of the carbon emissions are from developed countries as Sinitha put and I quote "The United States represents around 24% of the world’s carbon emissions (Telesetsky, 1999)" . Africans are more or less deprived when it comes to research and problem solving relating to climate change. What are the way forward on Africans when it comes to climate change? Considering the main lead question - "I am writing a short overview of climate change at the moment, and am finding it all predictably depressing. Am I right in thinking we are in very serious trouble?" Are there serious trouble on the African continent?

In my opinion the climate change is happening. But an important question is, how? And where?

It is accepted between all climate sciences that extreme events during this century have more frequency, these events have an increasing trend! We know this event has a profound impact on environmental and other aspect of society. The strong management and a public awareness are the first step! We don’t know what happens in the future but at the base of recent data we are going to the extreme situation.

Great answers. Sure the CO2 levels will rise, the biomass, wild fires issues, floods.

One point I'll like to make. 2050 and 2100 will bring us an accentuated self destructive behavior as the personal alienation process will become more acute. The competition for survival and "for the better" will dominate, the crime rate will increase. The virtual "socialization" networks transform humans in robots, dangerous self inflicting pain and trouble. More... soon ! Adrian TW.

The extent of severity by 2050 or 2100 cannot be fully conceptualized now because the real impact of climate change on the marginalized societies in the developing countries is yet to be fully understood since there is limited study on this group at micro level. Besides, the emerging economies like China are also exploiting the forest resources of some of these countries for their economic growth.

Why care about mitigation of climate change anyway, when the tasks at hand are needed to solve much more urgent problems? Replacing fossile ressources (oil and gas) by renewable ones is the single major task to sustain human societies as we know them, simply because fossile resources are limited and an imbalance of demand and supply will occur very soon. The main driver of the global loss of Biodiversity, which occurs at an increasing rate, is still land use change, which implies deforestation (including fire clearing). We are loosing tropical rain forest area with the size of Belgium every year. Facing these problems will gain the mitigation of climate change as a byproduct for free. Predicting consequences of climate change is an important issue for sure.

But the main message of what i want to say here is that no matter what you think about climate change and what its going to be like, the objectives stay the same.

We need to replace fossile ressources urgently and we can't replace the biosphere that keeps us alive in the first place and we have to protect it.

Climate scientists be blessed. But if e.g. the total loss of the forests on Sumatra are mainly raising worries about the carbon emmissions, something has gone fatally wrong.

I think, in future decades, temperature will increased but precipitation is variate in anywhere. precipitation will increased in high latitude and decreased in between 20-40 latitude degree. off course, AOGCM modeles have uncertainty and each scenario predicts the different result. it cannot say that the result of models how much is true. in about precipitation, some of them predict an increase and some other decreasing, but the overall pattern of it is decreasing.

AOGCM Modells predict temperature precisely and trend of it is increasing. it has caused to melting snow and ices and raising sea level.

All comments on the climate change predictions are thought provoking. There is no doubt that if the development process is going on like the present trend, GHG addition contributing to the warming up process cannot be reversed unless some unknown planetary mechanism operates to counter the human induced factor. I say this point on account of the fact that the earth had witnessed climate change several time before in its history due to planetary causes. Geologically the present period is considered as interglacial period which is a warmer period even otherwise. Naturally a colder climate will follow a warmer climate. I believe if the acceleration of warmer climate to continue like this, an early onset of the glacial period can be expected.

I have finally found the time to carefully read all the posts in this interesting discussion. I have no intention to summarize, only to add a few words. I think your responses are interesting and illuminating. They address many issues I did not raise in my original post because I know little about them: biodiversity, agriculture and food security, woodlands and water, the fate of marginalized societies, conflict between those who want to reach a safe heaven and those who do not want to let them in. I hope I didn't forget anything.

As a sociologist I know that any social problem, including climate change, is constructed by social agents, primarily powerful social agents like government officials, the mass media and economic tycoons. It is not the objective problem that counts but how it is socially constructed. The social constructions range from climate change deniers to doomsday prophets. They are all wrong, of course. The real challenge is to find a realistic consensus on how climate change is to be defined socially. This is what I started to try to do in my earlier post.

In light of the accumulating scientific evidence climate change is bad for everyone, it is very bad for some regions of the world. It would be a mistake to assume that it is also good for some regions, though the cost-benefit calculation for some countries is complex. Russia for example will clearly benefit from climate change. The thawing of the tundra is promising for agriculture, the thawing of arctic ice is good for trade. But there are also enormous risks which I will not detail here. The Russian government is well-aware of them but has no intention of publicizing them or of doing anything about them. This would ill-advised for a country where the exportation of natural gas is the backbone of its economy.

But let us not despair, the next generations depends on us.

We have to believe in the faith of nature, wich is the most powerfull energy (even more than nuclear energy, at least since creation is more than destruction). The nature will get her way to sustanibility somehow somewhen, the jumps of evolution that´s what I trust, the transformation of waterfalls of fascinating possibilities are open to us as beings, maybe a crazy turn over theory may save the situation.

Altought, we can always look for new simbiotic relations between things that may have been there for millions of years (as the Dark Earth theory proclames) I'm sure we are going to get done this.

the world will get better. this is because there are numerous pro-earth initiatives by numerous stakeholders led by the United Nations System. what is more encouraging is that after a near unanimous consensus, all countries are now rolling out climate smart initiatives in form of national development plans and climate action plans. even if 50% of these get implemented, the earth will get better. there are also genuine measures to cut down on population growth and reduce poverty in developing countries which should also be taken as a good sign of a better and more comfortable future.

Avi,

"The real challenge is to find a realistic consensus on how climate change is to be defined socially." Is it?

I think the real challenge is to avoid quasi-religious attitudes in this matter, pro or con, and find not exactly a consensus but a semblance of truth about reality. That is, about climate REALITY, not about ideas or "social constructions". The climate is a physical object and process, not a social construction. What is a social construction is the social and institutional organization of a movement for or against specific policies based on some specific vision about the climate. As you say, both "deniers" and "prophets of doom" may be socially or politically significant, but have little weight in the matter. What is needed is cold-headed dispassionate science, hard data, and the psychological disposition (so praised by Charles Darwin and Karl Popper) to mistrust and combat our own hypotheses until finding their weaknesses.

What social agents "construct" is not the climate, but their visions and ideas, and social or political processes based on those ideas. These ideas may or may not be in mutual agreement or consensus, but this has little to do with truth. The history of science is littered with consensuses about error (from geocentric astronomy to ulcers, from Newtonian physics to phlogiston to quasicrystals, and so on and on), which prosper especially when fostered by extra-scientific concerns (religious, ideological, political, economic, humanitarian or what not).

In the case of global warming, the actual crucible is not whether GHG cause warming: nobody in its right scientific mind denies that. The issue is actually water vapour, and how much of it would go into clouds. In other words, the matter is the estimate of "climate sensitivity", the ultimate increase in global temperature triggered by a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 and other GHG gases, by themselves, have an intrinsic sensibility of about 1°C. Water vapour intensifies the effect by trapping more heat, but clouds attenuate it by blocking sunlight. There are other aspects, but I cling to the essentials. The IPCC rough estimate is that total net sensitivity, all told, is between 1.5°C and 4.5°C per doubling, with an average about 3°C, but these estimates have been and still are hotly debated; historical evidence tends to point to lower values. Global temperatures are increasing at about 0.7°C per century (while CO2 increased by about 50%), but only PART of that modest warming is due to GHG: The rest is natural recovery from the "little ice age", and the rapid increase during 1975-98 progressed at the same rate than the previous rapid increase in 1915-40, suggesting multidecadal cycles (possibly linked to solar activity); there is also an ongoing debate on the overestimation of the warming tendency as meteo stations have become gradually surrounded by buildings and engines that create local heating. Probably only a fraction of the observed increase in 1975-1998 is due to GHG (there has been no further warming after that: the statistical trendline from 1995 to 2012 is flat; it was flat or downwards in 1940-75 and in 1885-1915, with alternating 30-yr periods of cooling and warming, all embedded in an underlying slow secular warming tendency since the mid 1800s).

So there are some indications that equilibrium sensitivity may end up being significantly LOWER than initially estimated. On the other hand there is no indication as yet that it may be GREATER than estimated. The actual value is hotly debated and nobody knows as yet. You may get a flavour of the debate at the blogsite "Climate Etc." run by the distinguished climate scientist and IPCC author Dr Judith Curry, http://judithcurry.com/ (you may do a search for "climate sensitivity", or simply browse the posts; some are more technical than others; the blogroll there lists a number of other interesting climate blogs, many of them scientifically minded although a few are quite militant in one direction or another).

In 2010, the UN Secretary General asked the Inter Academy Council (a body formed by the main national academies of sciences) to evaluate the work of the IPCC. They were extremely critical. They found that IPCC had systematically understated the uncertainty of its projections and estimates, that it had used a large number of non-peer reviewed sources (mostly from environmentalist activist organizations), that the process of review was not transparent, that the selection of its authorities was mainly political, that governments had influence on the conclusions, and so on. (see the complete report at http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report.html). It recommended a reform of the IPCC, but so far it has not happened, and only a few aspects have been only timidly and partially implemented.

This does not mean one cannot use the IPCC estimates. I have systematically based my study of these matters (centred on the impact of climate change on agriculture) upon the IPCC climate projections, taking them to the letter as if nothing is the matter with those projections. I am not a climate scientist and have little to contribute to the scientific debate in that regard. But I have been closely following the internal discussion (I have done research in empirical epistemology, and the matter if of professional interest to me). In the light of that, I am taking the workings of the IPCC (a political, not a scientific body) with a grain of salt.

As human beings have an ingrained penchant towards believing the worst, and this penchant has been rampant in our times with a slew of doomsayers being widely believed by the public and authorities but then shown successively and invariably wrong, I am not betting the farm on the eventual outcome in this matter.

Jess (upthread) - interested to know why David's answer was controversial? Accounting for the deep uncertainty involved with climate change is crucial to any assessment of future impacts, so for any researcher to say that we do 'know' would be more controversial than saying we don't know. The barriers in place to change our behaviour are massive (corporations and globalisation, as you say, are a big part of this), and the problem is indeed the most complex problem you can imagine (something which the simplicity of the Kyoto process failed to understand, thus wasting 15 years of potential mitigation progress).

On an unrelated note, this article on yesterday having the lowest Arctic sea ice area on record may be of interest to many of you

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/20/717511/arctic-death-spiral-watch-cryosphere-today-gone-tomorrow/

I would like to comment on both the original question and some of the subsequent discussion. I believe it's clear that there is no practical means of averting a 2C rise in global temperature above recent levels, much less above pre-industrial temperatures (which were 0.7C lower), but the question remains as to how much this measure will be exceeded and how the rise and its consequences can be ameliorated.

Of fossil fuel reserves, oil is likely to become substantially depleted over coming decades, but coal (the worst CO2 offender) is likely to remain a major source for well over a century. Natural gas now appears to be a very ample long term source as well. In this regard, it's important to note that substitution of natural gas for coal is itself a significant mitigation step - a "bridge" to a fossil fuel-free future - because burning gas to replace coal-based energy theoretically releases only 60 percent of the CO2 that coal would yield; this is due to the contribution of the hydrogen atoms in gas (e.g., methane, which is CH4) to the energy production. The actual benefit will be less than the theoretical one, but still substantial, giving us more time to move in the direction of energy conservation, increased energy efficiency, and alternative energy sources. That gas represent a substitute for coal (and oil) rather than an addition, is critical. If all potentially available fossil fuel reserves were extracted to the limit of their profitability, atmospheric CO2 levels would probably rise above 1200 ppm (parts per million), and temperature would rise well above 2C, with potentially devastating consequences. To avoid this, some fossil fuels must remain unharvested indefinitely.

Avoiding the consequences of future warming is a separate and vexing issue. It's now generally agreed that combination of mitigation to reduce future warming, and adaptation to the warming that is inevitable, will be required, with neither alone sufficient to protect us. I'll leave the sociopolitical implications of this to others, but it's important to point out that the two are somewhat complementary. Adaptation requires a fairly stable climate - i.e., a relatively low warming rate - because adaptive measures must be implemented to protect against specified scenarios. It would be extremely expensive, for example, to build new seawalls capable of protecting against a 2-meter sea level rise if the actual rise will not exceed 1meter for a century or more, whereas a rapidly rising sea level would be very damaging if we only averted the first 1 meter and that level were exceeded quickly.

In addition, the incentives for mitigation and adaptation vary among societies. Affluent societies are likely to see benefits in focusing on adaptation, because their investment in adaptation (seawalls, irrigation against drought, residence and population relocation, etc.) benefits them without a need to spend money to protect others. In contrast, mitigation is a shared endeavor, in which each nation's contribution to reduced CO2 emissions is a cost to them but a benefit spread among everyone. This requires a shared commitment - a very daunting international challenge - and the incentive in the near term to let others bear the main burden is a temptation of the kind envisaged in the concept of the "tragedy of the commons".

Finally, it must be pointed out that warming and its consequences is only one of two major climate change issues. The second is ocean acidification from the rising CO2, independent of temperature, with an eventual threat the marine food web important for many societies that depend on the sea for resources. This threat can't be ameliorated by curtailing warming, but only by curtailing CO2 emissions.

Since a question about climate change has arisen in this forum, I'd like to point out that elsewhere, I've established a format for asking climate questions. The website is CAMEL (Google CAMEL climate change), and the application is entitled "Ask A Climate Question". That feature aside, the site is probably worth visiting as a resource on climate issues.

Hi Hector,

Then neither of us is a climate scientist. Thanks for the data you bring into this discussion, very helpful and partially unknown to me. I totally agree that the IPCC was born as a political body and has stayed that way. I am less skeptical of its work. During my work in Germany I encountered another report on the IPCC which was not uncritical but certainly did not conclude that there are systematic errors in its work or that its finding and conclusions should be regarded as invalid.

Perhaps this shows that even scientific bodies construct reality based on unproven assumptions; this is almost a truism in sociological thought and in the sociology of science.

You may have misconstrued my use of the term "construction of reality" (used first by sociologists Berger & Luckman in the title of their classic book). At the risk of introducing the discipline of sociology into a discussion on climate change, I will say thi.

Fanatic social constructionists maintain that there is no objective reality or at least that we cannot know it, only interpretations of it. These interpretations vary, they are determined by powerful actors and most people believe that they are axiomatic until someone or something changes them.

I don't belong to this group; of course there is a "real" reality and of course climate change is a physical process that can be and is studied by scientists. The IPCC's work, with all its faults, has had little impact on decision makers. I know that this is far from unusual; it is one of my interests.

Climate change can do us serious harm irrespective of the physical evidence. Still, it is not climate change itself that can produce significant and effective social action; the social construction of climate change can. Not the currently dominant one, of course.

Let me exemplify briefly. One of my PhD students is currently completing his thesis on the professional discourse on energy resources in the US during the last 80 years. Nothing has changed until Obama. The discourse has been dominated by technological optimism, the belief in unlimited resources, and the belief that the market economy will pull us out of any mud hole, no matter how deep. US energy policy reflected these clever insights throughout these years. Well, how is that for a dominant construction of reality? Contrary to all evidence that energy resources are finite? It is not hard to guess who succeeded in keeping this status quo for 80 years, we probably both know most of the oil corporations and their allies by name

The real challenge is to change the social discourse about climate change and to neutralize the power brokers who want to keep it dominant. Ultimately, this is the only way to produce effective responses Not an easy task. Climate change is already here, we cannot change that. We can only change our interpretation of climate change, not as secondary to economic growth, but as a major threat to human security that we have to deal with during this century and beyond.

Wow- I certainly set the "cat among the pigeons" (quaint English phrase!) with my question. Thanks so much to all of you who have answered. It looks like the majority think we really have got a big problem, and a minority think it is not so serious. Although I have done some collaborative work on past climates, my main interest is in how to communicate all the scientific material in a simple way to the general public. To that end I have undertaken two national tours in the UK, and have given 100s of talks. I have also written some material for a more general audience. And that is what I am on to now. We have been asked to write a 6-8K chapter on climate change for a book on Justice issues. I completed a draft of the first section on the science and sent it on to a friend who is then looking at the policy issues after Rio+20. Then hopefully we get it back to wrap it up with some ethical thinking (my wife is good at that!) and a bit on "what to do??" Hopefully complete by end September.

It was as I was writing the first section that I had the idea for the question. I will definitely come back to your answers to do a bit of revision of what is already there and get brain going for the last bit!

Best Wishes,

Martin

I am also sharing the same feeling about our future...

There is a recent and very interesting article on the subject published in Nature last June 2012.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/hadlylab/pdfs/Barnoskyetal2012.pdf

I hope it will help you

Hi all,

I am not a specialist in forecasting. Yet despite uncertainities much trends are particularly alarming.

I add my 2 cents by indicating some interesting papers that some of you may not have.

Regards

Tito

*****************

Sala, O.E., Stuart Chapin III, F., Armesto, J.J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., Huber-Sanwald, E., Huenneke, L.F., Jackson, R.B., Kinzig, A., Leemans, R., Lodge, D.M., Mooney, H.A., Oesterheld, M., Poff, N.L., Sykes, M.T., Walker, B.H., Walker, M. & Wall, D.H. (2000) Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100. Science, 287, 1770 –1774.

http://www.uta.edu/biology/watson/lab/Undergraduate%20Reading%20Group/Sala%20et%20al%20(2000).pdf

Hulme, M., Doherty, R., Ngara, T., New, M. & Lister, D. (2001) African climate change: 1900-2100. Climate Research, 17, 145–168.

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic871786.files/c017p145.pdf

Badjeck, M.C., Katikiro, R.E., Flitner, M., Diop, N. & Schwerdtner, M. (2011) Envisioning 2050: Climate Change, Aquaculture and Fisheries in West Africa. Dakar, Senegal 14-16 April 2010. WorldFish/ZMT, Penang/Bremen.

http://aquaticcommons.org/5004/1/WF_2783.pdf

Söderholm, P., Hildingsson, R., Johansson, B., Khan, J. & Wilhelmsson, F. (2011) Governing the transition to low-carbon futures: A critical survey of energy scenarios for 2050. Futures, 43, 1105–1116.

http://www.lth.se/fileadmin/lets2050/Presentationer/101117_7_Soederholm.pdf

Craig, P.P., Gadgil, A. & Koomey, J.G. (2002) WHAT CAN HISTORY TEACH US? A Retrospective Examination of Long-Term Energy Forecasts for the United States*. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 27, 83–118.

http://www.watsoninstitute.org/ge/scenarios/pubs/finalenergyforecastsAREE.pdf

You might consider what we know as a starting point. The planet appears

to have started as a molten glob of oxides and other elements and it cooled enough to form a solid crust and even cooled enough to condense water and form the giant oceans and further cooling gave us the extensive polar snow caps. The earth has been cooling for some billions of years and there is no reason to think it will not continue to do so.

Robert L Hamilton

Beware of the veracity of your information. In fact, temperatures have changed often during these billions of years, sometimes up and sometimes down. In some cases the vicissitudes were greater than the current climate change, much of this is yet to be explained. But none of these changes was caused by humans, and none occurred as rapidly as the current one..

the extremely slow cooling rate you talk of here would be absorbed within climatic variability. As Avi says it is the rapidity of change that causes problems, and there is no analogue from the past that has been found in palaeoclimatic studies for what is happening today, so our changing of atmosphere is essentially a vast and dangerous experiment that affects everyone and everything on Earth

David, I wholeheartedly agree. I am currently in the process of writing up a paper about quantifying uncertainties in the impact of climate change impact on water resources in the UK and how to use the information in a risk-based framework. I find it astonishing how often climate change impacts on a particular variable in the future are presented as single values, often means.

Really nice discussion. Here is an article about the current math behind global warming. Many people are not aware of how bad the situation can get if we continue polluting the environment.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Talking and writing about it feels like a dinosaur staring at the meteor tearing toward the earth 70 million years ago. If we want to rise above animals we must do something to prevent the catastrophe.

This is a follow up to Toby Mottram's comment - http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1332.html

I agree. So many people complain about the climate change, but nobody is doing anything. If we try I think we can prevent a disaster that's coming our way. All we need to do is unite in common cause. But that is the biggest obstacle for our race.

We are indeed in serious trouble...You know, here in Bangladesh, this is monsoon and there is almost no rain here,...In during the winter, it is too cold to bear but only for a short period, and in summer it is too hot...All the seasons have just shifted and shortened with increasing intensity. The rivers are dried up and extreme climatic conditions with several flood, tropical cyclones hit this area within a very short period. Everything is changing, and changing I think in a rate much faster than we've anticipated..Because even we the new generation can feel the change and can compare the changes in climatic condition between our boyhood experience with that exists now.. So, I think you're thinking in a right way.....

In 1980's we would get typical rains. Everyday rains and there were patterns. The sowing rains and typical sunlight was very welcoming. Later intermittant day rains. Much later continuous rains in the evenings and much later night rains and that would stop at dawn. Every rain followed according to "rain star/s" that were known since vedic times. My mom not literate but was very conscious about rains and like months and weeks she would predict the rains with their names and a birth of each rain and end is a gap of 15 days and accordingly the rains would arrive. Some rain star in the evening like that. Some times the rain would delay by one or two days then there would be lament. We would get summer showers and that would encourage jasmine flowers and the onset of marriage seasons with surplus food.

In 1990's during my visits to the rural (for the popularization of vermitechnology and vermicompost applications), threre would be much discussion on the shifting pattern of rains. Then among the rain stars we would miss one or two rains in the season which literally did not affect much.

In 2000's rains were regular but either with short falls or heavy down pours and the crops growth suffered eithither due to lack of or due to excess.

The real game of Global warming experiencing since 2010 onwards. Literally very less winters with intensive sunlight. Summers are just very intense and thirsty throughout. Rains are heavy can be unnecessary and then no rains. Mosquito started all through the season. Earlier only summers of two months (b/t April and May) were the problem (intensive) and were controllable natural means. Morning 6 -8a.m. and evening 6-8p.m. were the entry period. By shutting windows and doors and other entrances were suffice. Now since last year we get mosquitoes all through the year with excess populations and all through the day their emergences and entries are common. Not even narcotised or killed by the repellants. Since last 3 years our farmers are literrally spraying the cattle in the evenings with insecticides to keep the mosquitoes away. Missed one night of sprayings the milk yield reduced to 30 40%.

This year rains are very alarming. We get intense rain clouds very down to earth and heavy dark grey clouds and the typical warmth and the feel of rain outpour but suddenly through heavy winds the clouds dissappear (we dont see their movement) but just dissappearance and a clear summer sky shows up. This happened all of 3 4 districts which I keep move around frequently. Such "rain dissappearance" has happened once in 15days with continuing for weeks together. Just 5 - 10mts of heavy downpour and that's it. That night would be cool to some extent. The very next evening we experience multiple populations of mosquites and other winged insects of all sizes and class and order. Literally cannot step out.

Bangalore urban and rural would be called as "air-conditioned" areas with literally colds i n winters and cool summers. Now every house use fans and air conditioners at home without which sleep becomes restless. Mornings are very tired and exhausted.

I traditional old timers can solve these problems with suggestions so called as indegenous traditions can be decided. Our life styles have become very westernized. The food habits among youngsters (6 - 20years) may face severe health/physiological impairments during their 30s' to 40s'. Medical field is so advanced but are failing to create healthy atmosphere. Intense and popular and regular health camps are necessary. Certain junk food fanciies must be banned.

From the agriculture side 50% cut down of chemical fertilizers from the Govt. side must happen so also insecticides. Crops appear to have extended their physiological growth. Required most important and valuable and that can be grown less headaches can be stick on. Certain vegetables like capsicum, cabbage, cauliflower can be literally stoped for their excess intake of fertilizers (chemical) and pesticides. Still there is surplus farm wastes and animal husbandry in village India. Orgnaic manures can be the way. Simply reducing the supply of Chemi. feti. our farmers literally shift back to olden agriculture.

One attachment for your note. Where in village India still the following of rain stars and predictions of the crops happening. My own publication.

Available Online at: www.environmentaljournal.org

Volume 1, Issue 3: 363-372, UNIVERSAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

anything I submit is deleted. Look, the planet has lopped along for a billion or more years with nothing but the stories of Noah and the flood. How can we deal with something beyond our knowing? Give it up, please.

Bob Hamilton

Richardson Texas USA

The Stern review is to date the most comprehensive undertaking to evaluate the monetary consequences of climate change, and it provides a wealth of information about the impacts in different sectors. Note that there has been some criticism of the methodology used to arrive at the figure, amongst others about the preference rate used. I still think it's a remarkable study.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm

Sebastian, it is a remarkably wrong report. Well intentioned I suppose, but wrong nonetheless. It did a disservice to the goals it attempted to serve.

To say the Stern review is "remarkably wrong" is a very broad statement. Most of the criticism has been about the discount rates used, which is a fundamentally unsolved problem in economics when the very long-term is concerned (some people even argue for zero or even negative discount rates!). As for the rest of the assumptions, it is obvious that a lot of it is by nature extrapolated from imperfect current knowledge and thus an approximation of the costs. Several leading economists like Robert Solow, James Mirrlees, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeffrey Sachs have been favourable to the report. Criticism by people like Nigel Lawson, Bjorn Lomborg or republican us think tanks can safely be disregarded as solely politically motivated.

Of course, the best summary of the probable impacts of climate change is synthesized in the IPCC working group 2 assessment report.

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/contents.html

The problem with the discount rates, Sebastian, is not that Stern used too low or too high rates: that would be debatable. The problem is that a sound economic analysis requires those rates to be consistent over time. Otherwise, the analysis may find incoherent things. If A and B are two policy options, inconsistent discount rates may show that alternative A is preferable to B today, but the opposite tomorrow. Present value of a policy option (expected discounted benefits minus expected discounted costs) could not be estimated reliably. In other words, the entire edifice of conclusions crumbles. One normally learns these things in Economics 101.

Regarding the conclusions of the IPCC Working Group II (on impacts and adaptation) you may read the assessment of its work done by the Inter Academy Council at the request of the IPCC and the Secretary General of the UN. It says, for instance:

"The Working Group II Summary for Policymakers has been criticized for various errors and for emphasizing the negative impacts of climate change. These problems derive partly from a failure to adhere to IPCC’s uncertainty guidance for the fourth assessment and partly from shortcomings in the guidance itself. [...] However, authors reported high confidence in some statements for which there is little evidence. Furthermore, by making vague statements that were difficult to refute, authors were able to attach ‘high confidence’ to the statements. The Working Group II Summary for Policymakers contains many such statements that are not supported sufficiently in the literature, not put into perspective, or not expressed clearly." (p. XIV).

The IAC report is full of such damning assessments of Working Group II reports, including the full report and also the Summary. It contains also criticisms of the other working group reports as well.

The IPCC has formally accepted the IAC assessment and said it would amend the errors and deficiencies it found (not only concerning WG II but the entire operation of the IPCC) but has so far offered very little in the way of reform. The IAC report can be found at http://reviewipcc.interacademycouncil.net/report.html.

A final remark: the deficiencies detectable in both the Stern report and those found in the IPCC report are not mere "errors", which would be random mistakes with no systematic tendency. They are instead consistently, and invariably, in one and only one direction and to one and only one effect, namely to overstate the size and impact of future climate change, and to understate the uncertainty of such assessments. Those are not mistakes but systematic biases, all of a nature so evident that the learned authors should have known better, if they were truly making a disinterested impartial and scientific assessment, as was the mission of both the Stern committee and the IPCC.

A more detailed analysis of the economics of climate policy, including an assessment of the Stern report, can be found in the book by Dr William Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University:

William Nordhaus, 2008. A question of balance: Weighing the options on global warming policy. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

Unlike Amartya Sen or Joe Stiglitz, who have opined in general as to the policies recommended, Nordhaus is a specialist in the matter who has done extensive research and analysis regarding the same problems addressed in the Stern report.

As you say, many opinions in this field are politically motivated, on both sides. To avoid or minimize the danger of following mere opinions, one has to be as detailed and rigorous as possible. God may be everywhere, but the devil is in the details.

As for myself, I am not partisan in this issue. I think truth is all that counts. If anything, my research and work on world hunger makes me to lean towards the opposite side of the "republican think tanks" you allude. My own work on the matter of climate has dealt mainly with the expected impacts of climate change on food security and agriculture; for this purpose, and as regard climate change, I have relied on the IPCC climate projections (WG1) throughout, but found the relevant part of the WG2 report on impacts quite wanting and unusable, as did many others including the IAC. For projected impacts on agriculture I relied instead on related multi-authored work sponsored by FAO (team led by Robert Mendelsohn) and IIASA (program led by Gunther Fischer), which have done extensive research and modelling about the matter of my interest, with a large number of refereed publications over the years. Both are good, but the IIASA integrated-assessment linked-models approach is far superior to the mostly econometric Mendelsohn approach.

I also found several other assessment of impacts on agriculture to be "methodologically challenged", and deeply so, to say it elegantly. See references to my own work at my LinkedIn profile, ar.linkedin.com/in/hectormaletta.

no report is 'wrong' or 'right'. Personally I think trying express a complex issue such as climate change into the restraints of classical economics doesn't make sense at all anyway. The IPCC AR4 report, although excellent, is now way out of date (the science within it only goes up to around the beginning of 2006, which is ancient in research terms), so can't be seen as a definitive catalogue of 'what we know'

Christopher, the Stern report aimed at doing an economic assessment of costs and benefits of climate policy, in view of existing projections of future climate change.To do that, it used, as it should, the tools of economic analysis, which are commonly used to evaluate costs and benefits of any course of action in a context of uncertainty. Such assessments are more important when the problem is more complex and more important, and when the costs and benefits are larger, because people and governments would not accept expensive proposals unless a net positive benefit is demonstrated. Thus a cost/benefit analysis is a necessity. It should be done technically well, and consider all the alternatives as well as the uncertainties involved.

There is an interesting analysis of this problem, as applied to climate, in the book by Roger Pielke Jr, The Climate Fix (New York, Basic Books, 2010).

I would also add as references, regarding the Stern report and the methodological issues concerning the economic assessment of climate policy, the contributions of Dr Richard Tol, a top environmental economist, now Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex (UK) and also professor of Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam . A list of his papers may be fount at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/economics/people/peoplelists/person/289812.

Of particular interest for this discussion are the following papers of his:

*Tol, Richard S J and Yohe, Gary W (2009) The Stern Review: A deconstruction. Energy Policy, 37 (3). pp. 1032-1040.

*Yohe, Gary W and Tol, Richard S J (2008) The Stern Review and the economics of climate change: An editorial essay. Climatic Change, 89 (3-4). pp. 231-240.

*Tol, Richard S J (2011) The social cost of carbon. Annual Review of Resource Economics, 3. pp. 419-443.

*Anthoff, David and Tol, Richard S J (2010) On international equity weights and national decision making on climate change. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 60 (1). pp. 14-20.

*Tavoni, Massimo and Tol, Richard S J (2010) Counting only the hits? The risk of underestimating the costs of stringent climate policy: A letter. Climatic Change, 100 (3-4). pp. 769-778.

*Tol, Richard S J (2010) The economic impact of climate change. Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 11 (S1). pp. 13-37.

*Anthoff, David, Tol, Richard S J and Yohe, Gary W (2009) Risk aversion, time preference, and the social cost of carbon. Environmental Research Letters, 4 (2).

*Kuik, Onno, Brander, Luke and Tol, Richard S J (2009) Marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions: A meta-analysis. Energy Policy, 37 (4). pp. 1395-1403.

*Yohe, Gary W and Tol, Richard S J (2007) The Stern Review: Implications for climate change. Environment, 49 (2). pp. 36-43. ISSN 0013-9157

*Tol, Richard S J and Yohe, Gary W (2007) Infinite uncertainty, forgotten feedbacks, and cost-benefit analysis of climate policy. Climatic Change, 83 (4). pp. 429-442. ISSN 0165-0009

Yes. You are right. It is depressing and "we" are in a lot of trouble.

The IPCC has a lot of material on this subject so good starting points are the the Working Group 1 report on the scientific basis and the Working Group 2 report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Work is underway now on the fifth assessment report which will be available in 2013 and 2014. The IPCC is actually very conservative so I suspect (I have no unique insight into what they're writing) that this report will underestimate harms. On the other hand, current observations of things like arctic sea-ice show that change can occur differently, much more quickly, than theory and models have so far predicted. An arctic free of sea-ice in summer and with reduced sea-ice in winter will change weather patterns at middle and high latitudes. Changes to weather will probably mean that moisture (for example) will be redistributed in a way different from current climatology. Are we seeing that this year over the USA? Perhaps, though we need more evidence to be sure.

I believe that optimism about the effects of climate change on human societies is probably a mistake. Probably there will be a significant reduction in population. Probably there will be significant changes in lifestyle of the current group of wealthily, profligate nation-states. Probably there will be violence as impoverished desperate people with no where to live attempt to move to parts of the globe where living is less difficult. Probably the oceans will become much less hospitable to the kinds of life that we admire and make use of. It's not going to be easier for our collective descendants than it is now. It's going to be more difficult.

However, humans on the whole are (apparently) very adaptable so I believe that, ultimately, our societies will make the adjustments necessary to live with the changes that are foreseen at the moment. People will very likely live very differently in 100 and 1000 years than they do now (but that is probably true disregarding climate change in any case). It's always possible that continuing changes in technology could completely disrupt any predictions we make. This could happen via discoveries that help mitigate or adapt to the problem. It could also happen in a way that makes things worse (continuing use of fossil fuels such as coal without regard to emissions of carbon into the atmosphere for example).

I agree with Ed that the IPCC is generally considered conservative (in the sense of moderate) and has rarely been found to exaggerate climate change impacts. There are however errors like a much too rapid anticipated melt of himalayan glaciers that was also badly documented in the report. On the other hand, the predictions regarding sea level rise are almost certainly underestimated, as many new studies, empirical or theoretical by Rahmstorf, Velicogna, etc. show.

Hector, I am not familiar with Tol's work (I am not an economist by trade), but it certainly sounds worth looking into. I am more familiar with Nordhaus, who is of course one of the longest standing investigators of the cost of climate change. I remember his 1991 (long time!) article, which incidentally was criticized by Ayres and Walter the same year for underestimating certain costs. Generally, I think the cost estimation of environmental impacts is a very perilous undertaking, especially in a world with such great discrepancies in development and where a large part of the global population lives in an essentially non monetary economy based on agricultural subsistence farming. I just worked in a LDC and probably I could buy a nice piece of farmland there for very little money. But what would that be worth to me in comparison to a local farmer who feeds a whole family from it? The monetary value of such amenities is often a very bad indicator of their real value to society. Just an opinion...

Sebastian,

the IPCC Working Group I has more strict standards than WG2, and thus their conclusions tend to reflect better the status of scientific knowledge. WG2 is much more influenced by interest groups and activists, uses a lot of "grey literature", and has consequently been harshly criticized by the IAC and other analysts.

Among those that think that WG1 is "conservative" there are many who are themselves activists, with a vested interest in (or an ideological preference for) getting the direst predictions possible. Regarding sea level rise, in fact the latest figures are more moderate than envisaged in AR4 (there were some years of accelerated rise in 1993-2003, but slower rise of sea level in the following years); all in all my impression is that little has changed. But of course I am not a climate scientist or a specialist in oceanography.

Regarding your assessment of land prices: Economics is not about absolute but relative valuations, and is about market prices, not about intrinsic or transcendental values. The economic value of a piece of land in, say, Kenya or Mozambique is not given by the subjective appreciation of anybody, but by the amount that the various actors are actually prepared to spend to buy such piece of land, compared to their willingness to spend that money to other ends.

The land in question might be very important for a peasant family but they do not have much money to invest in the purchase of land; therefore they count for little towards the market value of that land; you, on the other hand, may be able to pay more for that land, but you are probably not interested either: you live elsewhere, you would not know what to do with that land, and the juridical condition of the land may cause your ownership title to be shaky (even if you decide to donate it to a poor peasant family). In the end you would prefer to spend the money in other pursuits, as I suspect you did. The land itself may be of poor quality (for the same money you may buy a piece of land producing more revenue in Brazil or Argentina, supposing you can also afford the capital required to make it productive and access the markets to sell the produce). In the end, the resulting market price of that land is what it is: too little for you (but you won't buy) and too much for the peasant, who would rather scrap whatever money he can in order to pay a human-trafficker and try to get to Europe, if he is adventurous or desperate enough, or to some slum in the country's crowded capital if not. In fact, rural population as a share of total population, subsistence peasants as a share of rural population, subsistence farm production as a share of rural families' total income, farmers' on-farm food consumption as a share of their total food consumption, agricultural output as a share of GDP, and subsistence farming production as a share of total agricultural production, are all rapidly falling in practically all countries.

This is not a nice line of thought, I know. This is not a nice world. Bringing such cold facts to the fore is why Economics is often called "the dismal science".

However, on a more positive tone, one can also point out that in the meantime, total and per capita food production and consumption, as well as agricultural production per unit of agricultural land, are all increasing, while the share of people not consuming the minimum amount of food energy (undernourishment) is diminishing, and these statements are true for the whole world, for all major regions, and for most countries (there are some unfortunate countries going backwards, but one cannot have everything, and then the share of the world population living in those countries is rapidly shrinking; FAO projects it would be nearly zero by 2030).

A response to Hector Maletta 's statement about sea level rise projections being lower in AR4 than they were in TAR. The estimates in the TAR included likely melting of the polar ice sheets. In AR4, it was decided to exclude the ice sheets because the numbers were too uncertain. A44 was very clear about this, but unfortunately the news media just looked at the number and reported the top estimate as having decreased. But this was apples and oranges -- it went from essentially a "worst case" estimate in TAR to a "best case" estimate in AR4. Meanwhile, the ice sheets have been losing mass at an accelerating rate. The bottom line is that sea level projections by IPCC have always been conservative and have NOT been revised downwards. Stefan Rahmstorf explains all this in some detail at RealClimate.org:

"... sea level uncertainty is not smaller now than it was at the time of the TAR, and quoting the 18-59 cm range of sea level rise, as many media articles have done, is not telling the full story. 59 cm is unfortunately not the “worst case”. It does not include the full ice sheet uncertainty, which could add 20 cm or even more. It does not cover the full “likely” temperature range given in the AR4 (up to 6.4 ºC) – correcting for that could again roughly add 20 cm. It does not account for the fact that past sea level rise is underestimated by the models for reasons that are unclear. Considering these issues, a sea level rise exceeding one metre can in my view by no means ruled out."

The full write-up is here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/

I think your dates are wrong, try the CO2 emission levels as to when the whole climate goes up one or two C or two or three... that is the James Hansen method

Much of this conversation will have to be revised ever since Hurricane Sandy washed away of a good part of New Jersey and flooding of the bottom half of New York City --Wall Street and homes of millions of people). Low estimate of costs WSJ 50 billion. But what costs to whom, where, and the property values? Will the billions of towers and real estate loose value? All those people in Long Island, New Jersey and and – how much is a flooded area, city, and the people’s losses worth?

The weather patterns were hardly described in the US commercial capitalist press as climate influenced. Nothing of significance has been done by the Obama administration in the last four years on enviro/or ecological subjects. More like rejection and obstruction in Durban and blockage by the international carbon club in command in the US. Blindness, stupidity or greed?

Whereas the US military realizes that much trouble will ensue and is doing research on how to protect the resources needed to keep the military functioning – to protect their resources, which protects the military in its function.

The London School of Economics’ agenda as I understand, is to advance capitalist industry and protect that neo-liberal system, and so the Stern report from that institution should be understood as part of such economic disasters as the “market” produced in 2008-9 and is expected to be repeated along with another Hurricane.

The UN and Capitalism has been joined at the mouth and hip. Shall one discount the basic political economic agreement? Kofi Annan went to Africa to introduce the “Green Revolution” agriculture by Bill Gates and agribusiness. More pesticides, large capital investment, small farmers out – organic? What is that?

There is/was no evidence in the campaign speeches (before the Monster Hurricane) of the next head of the Empire that what you-all know as the data, the facts, research, the arguments (even the conservative ones) is understood or openly admitted by either speechmaker. The promises spouted are for more jobs, expansion, and the Empire’s right to invade and interfere and kill people (drone them) in other countries. Nothing about reducing emissions, or protecting fisheries, or slow down the loss of coral reefs, or even recognize that warming, and warm water causes extremes in droughts, floods etc.

Recognizing the US and its partners control the World Bank and IMF thus we find no lack of funding for horrific ecologically crippling projects.

How many disasters will it take to change ‘lead into gold?’ One disaster caused the Governor of New York and the Mayor of NY City to say –Ahhhhhm “It’s Global warming.” Nevertheless I think there needs be three disasters in the same place before an effective change of focus or mind will begin to take place.

Remember this is an expansionist, exploitive system and crisis breeds profits as well as changes. (Naomi Klein, Zizek et-al). Any discussion of the scientific factors is far more fascinating then the political-economic clichés that go along with “hope” and tacit demand for instant “solutions.” The realization and admission that the “market place” (euphemism for capitalism) is not based on ecological science would be a necessary inclusion for scientists.

Where will the effort come from to stem the oncoming damage, seems like Germany is on the move, smaller countries that are not in the UN Security council have a chance to join together. Nature is on the side of the anti-market folks: Why the NY Stock Exchange was closed for two days! Syriza in Greece is likely to take charge a lesson for all. Another hurricane (as of Nov.6-7) is on the way to the US East Coast. Flooding of the Nile delta provided richer soil for food production— perhaps this is a sign, signifier and signified event. New York and New Jersey -- back to wetlands and farms.

I've tried to visualise how bad things will be in 2050 in my novel 500 Parts Per Million, which is a story about life, love and survival in a warmed up world. I tried to base most of the plot on credible scenarios contained within scientific reports. You can find out more at my website www.peterromilly.com. Sorry about the shameless plug, but I feel that fiction is another way of spreading the message that climate change is a really serious problem.