h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm new to this forum business so please forgive if I'm not up to speed with the format etc. I'm pretty sure in my own mind that we are to blame for a significant part of climate change and that, if we modified our behaviour, we could mitigate to a certain extent what is happening naturally. Any action of this kind has to be to our, or at least our grand childrens' benefit. The problem is that far too many people who ought to know better are, for reasons ranging from having shares in the oil companies to God will take care of us, prepared to ingnore the science. Which, in spite of a few dodgy e.mails, appears to be overwhelming. This means that the large majority of the earth's population are getting mixed and confusing messages as to what the real story is. The task seems to be therefore to try to persuade the opinion makers to see the evidence for man-made climate change as being convincing enough not to leave the future to chance and to start to do something about greenhouse gas emissions NOW. What is needed perhaps is an overwhelming arguement that cannot be refuted and that not even the stock holders of Exxon Mobile can ignore. Perhaps it could run something like this: the carboniferous period, when the earth's fossil fuel deposits were laid down, lasted for some sixty million years. In the intervening period, about three hundred and fifty million years, the biosphere has adjusted to being without the carbon which was thus locked away. During the last two hundred years we have tapped in to this resourse and have been using it at an ever increasing rate. It should be possible to have a reasonable guess as to how much of the fossil fuel reserves we have used and so say how much of what was there in the first place we have used. It has surely got to be a significant amount. So in the blink of an eye we have pumped back into the atmosphere huge amounts of carbon that was locked away for hundreds of millions of years. Common sense tells us that if a system experiences a sudden overload it will react and try to restore its default state; if you drink too wine your body will object and will try to get rid of the excess and you throw up. This, I suggest, is what is happening to the earth. The sudden release of greenhouse gasses is overwhelming the earth's ability to absorb them. The oceans are becoming more acid and other carbon sinks are being compromised,(deforestation etc). The result is that the carbon has nowhere to go and therefore stays in the atmosphere thus adding to the global warming that is happening naturally.I know that this is a purely qualitative arguement. But if, in essence, it is true then it might be of use in trying to persusuade people that the science should be heeded. My grand children are five and seven. Is it worth risking their future, and billions like them, for the sake of a developed world lifestyle that is rapidly becoming unsustainable anyway?

Good morning Don and Welcome to h2g2!


One of our community volunteers - an Ace will be along to your personal space shortly to give you an official welcome.

I expect you will get quite a few comments back regarding this posting and hope that you enjoy your time here!

Lanzababy

Dear donw, great to hear from you and a warm welcome to h2g2. Your argument makes great sense. We have quite a few interesting articles on the environment in h2g2. This is a good one: A16407173

There are more here too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/C59

You might also consider cutting and pasting again what you've written into a very popular past of h2g2 called Askh2g2 - that way it may generate a bit more response: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A148907

All the best,

h2g2Editors

I'm afraid I must display my ignorance and admit that I don't know how to cut and past what I wrote into the site that you suggest. Can you help please?

No worries, donnw. If you point the cursor - the arrow - at the beginning of the text, then right-click on the mouse without letting go (keep your finger down) you can then move the mouse across and down the page and it will highlight the text you wish to copy in blue (a blue background). Letting go the mouse - making sure the highlighted text in blue is still there - you press the Ctrl button + the letter C (hit ctrl first, keep your finger down, then hit the letter C on the keyboard. If you're using a Mac you hit the 'apple' button instead of Ctrl). This will copy the highlighted text.

You then go here, to Askh2g2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A148907

Start a new conversation, and pointing the cursor and clicking in the box where you type whatever it is you want to type, you then press ctrl + V. This will paste the copied text onto the page.

Let us know how you get on.

*whisper* I think it's the left mouse button, not the right.

If you need any more help, don, we're here.

Some of us are still reading The Forum - give us a chance to reply!

Sadly, however simple & compelling a case anyone can put forward for global warming, there will always be sceptics, 'don't care's & non-believers. That's not to say it isn't worth trying. If enough people got together with the same message, I guess it would gradually gain ascendancy.

>>> Some of us are still reading The Forum - give us a chance to reply!

Oops sorry!

There is a remarkable amount of people who still believe that global warming is a scare-mongering tactic, designed to let the government justify changes and higher taxes.

...and then some governments fall foul of advertising regulation...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8571353.stm



t.

Fail.

Like the anti-climate change people needed any more amunition...

No one, even those who arn't sceptic, is willing to do anything about climate change/global warming, whcih is the real problem. All so-called efforts to 'tackle' it, centre on the individual, which is about the least effective way to go about it, the only way to evoke real changes in emission of CO2 is to tackle those who produce the most which is certainly the big coorperations and not each individual. plus its far easier to tackle it from a few individuals/companys than from each individual, especially when those individuals are not given any alterntive. Unless there are some major changes in the approach both by government, lobbieing organisations and various aspect sof the 'green movement', its all an utter waste of time.
It isn't teh kind of issue that will be addressed by 'part mesures', its pretty much all or nothing; either CO2 is reduced, and reduced soon, to a sustainible level, or it isn't; in the former case we'll still have to hope that too much dammage hasn't already been done, and in the later case, it won't have any effect whatsoever on the outcome.

I think we'll be beyond the point of no return by the time the major culprits pay heed, or at least into severe damage limitation.
I do at least reassure myself that the planet will survive (until the sun dies) even if mankind doesn't. We're pretty small fry in the scale of the universe.