The BBC suggested in a recent broadcast that the Earth has not warmed significantly over the past two decades, which is contrary to predictions from climate models. Were the scientists wrong? Watch the following video before discussing the questions that follow.
Is Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) a good sole
indicator for climate change? What other indicators/metrics could we use?
How will a warming ocean effect arctic sea ice and the Greenland
ice sheet?How will the reduction of ice
effect future climate change and ocean currents?Why? (Check out other discussions on the blog).
Were scientists in error about the rate of climate
change?If so, do we have more time to
develop green technologies for a sustainable economy, like graphene supercapacitors in the video below?
Is there any similarity between how oceans
store and release heat, and how graphene supercapitors store and release electricity?
Oil. The life blood of the economy. Why did it become so important? How dependent on it are we? Will it form part of our future? Watch the next couple of videos from the Post Carbon Institute.....
The above videos suggest that medieval humans extracted coal because they ran out of wood. Normally, when an important resource in an animal population's environment is over consumed, that population collapses, and does not recover until the resource recovers. Yet the human brain allows for quick adaptation, and human technology evolved around the easy access of fossil fuels. Since then, technology mixed with entrepreneurial spirit has allowed humans to continue to increase the carrying capacity of the Earth, and so increase its population. Now imagine the global human mind as the scientific and engineering community, with lightning quick communication. The inventive mind of mankind is now much more adaptable and powerful than in medieval times.
Will technological adaptation continue to allow human population expansion and exploitation of natural resources? Is there an inevitable upper limit to how numerous the human population can become, and how much humans can consume? Is a human population collapse likely?
Will future technologies reduce green house gas emissions and sequester those gases already in the atmosphere, and therefore help cool the planet?
Will expansion of the world economy continue? How will this effect biodiversity? Will extinctions rates remain high if humans somehow overcome the limiting factor of scarce oil?
Will future economies respect other species and ecosystem? Or will the free market, limited only by a new energy regime, still destroy habitats around the world unless constrained by regulation?
Can we create a better tomorrow if fossil fuels remain part of the energy mix?
The videos below give insight to where the human race may be heading, and may help answer the above questions.
According to an article in the Mail, James Lovelock, originator of the GAIA hypothesis, alarmed the world about climate change by stating:
Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.
Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By 2040 every summer in Europe will be... between 110F and 120F (43C - 49C). It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow. There will be almost no food grown in Europe.
By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position. By 2040, China will be uninhabitable.
Florida will be gone altogether, the whole damned place, in not too long.
We have no option but to take our punishment and be glad that there will be enough of us to survive.
In an interview with the BBC's Hardtalk, Lovelock predicted global population collapse, and that Earth can sustain no more than one billion people.
According to the Mail's article (2012), he has now said he was alarmist. He states that though global warming is happening, it is not as rapid as he initially thought. What is the truth? Was James Lovelock mistaken? Was he correct, just a few decades too early in his predictions? Or did he understate the dangers of climate change in his original assessment? The video below explores Tipping Points. After watching, there follows a few questions which you can discuss with yourself or your class.
Is the above video biased in anyway? Is it accurate? Is it alarmist? Can we believe it?
Does the video support Lovelock's initial predictions, or does it support his later view that he had got it wrong?
Is humanity able to predict what will happen to the climate over the next few centuries, especially taking into consideration the complexity of tipping points? What research do we need to do to accomplish realistic models?
Are we able to predict the economic costs of reaching the various tipping points?
What temperature is required to initiate a tipping point? Does passing one tipping point push us faster toward another tipping point?
Can humanity avoid reaching the critical threshold temperature of a tipping point through technology? What technologies?
Does humanity need to quickly reduce its use on fossil fuels? If so, what would a post carbon economy look like?
What population, and what level of consumption is sustainable in a post carbon economy? How do we measure what is sustainable? What is sustainability anyway?
Can a 30 story building produce the same amount of food as a 10 km square farm? The first video below suggest that in the future this may be possible, if we embrace nanotechnology and genetic engineering. Is technology alone the answer to humanity's problems?
If growing food on the sides of buildings frees up land, would such land be used for malls, housing or food for more people? Or should we restore such land to working ecosystems with high biodiversity? What is the value in that for humans? Is it really worth anything economically?
Thinking about natural ecosystems as a biological technology that provides humanity with high-value services may help future developers integrate conserved natural areas with urban and industrial areas. In this way, mitigating the effects of climate change, creating jobs, protecting housing from floods, purifying waste, protecting threatened species and improving human lives may all be possible. Do we have to change the current economic system to achieve this? Can an Ecological Economy, a symbiosis between the technologies of man and natural ecosystems, emerge from unrestrained capitalism?
The two videos below represent different ends of the climate change adaptation spectrum. The first, STONE LINES, illustrates the use of a basic adaptive technology already utilised to great effect in an arid region of Africa. The second video by Dr Michio Kaku is purely philosophical and centres around the possible utopia created by NANOTECHNOLOGY.
Which of these two videos best applies to a future Earth? Does it depend on the path the global economy takes?
Will technology answer the climate change conundrum after all? If so, as humans thrive, what will happen to other species? What will the surface of the planet look like?
What technology do feel will have the biggest impact over the next century, and what will be its effects?
Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures the effects of the world economy in cinematography as beautiful as any nature documentary in HOME. The video below is a preview of the full movie, available on YouTube.
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