Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Melting Ice 'Will Swamp Capitals' (Global Warming)
Independent (UK) ^ | 12-7-2003 | Geoffrey Lean

Posted on 12/06/2003 4:05:59 PM PST by blam

Melting ice 'will swamp capitals'

By Geoffrey Lean Environment Editor
07 December 2003

Measures to fight global warming will have to be at least four times stronger than the Kyoto Protocol if they are to avoid the melting of the polar ice caps, inundating central London and many of the world's biggest cities, concludes a new official report.

The report, by a German government body, says that even if it is fully implemented, the protocol will only have a "marginal attenuating effect" on the climate change. But last week even this was thrown into doubt amid contradictory signals from the Russian government as to whether it will allow the treaty to come into effect.

Global warming already kills 150,000 people a year worldwide and the rate of climate change is soon likely to exceed anything the planet has seen "in the last million years" says the report, produced by the German Advisory Council on Global Change for a meeting of the world's environment ministers to consider the future of the treaty in Milan this week.

It concludes that the protocol must urgently be brought into force, but only as a first step, insisting that "catastrophic" climate change "can now only be prevented if climate protection targets are set at substantially higher levels than those agreed internationally until now".

The report, written by eight leading German professors, says that "dangerous climatic changes" will become "highly probable" if the world's average temperature is allowed to increase to more than 2 degrees centigrade above what it was before the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Beyond that level the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice cap would begin gradually to melt away, eventually raising sea levels world wide by up to 30 feet, submerging vast areas of land and key cities worldwide. London, New York, Miami, Bombay, Calcutta, Sydney, Shanghai, Lagos and Tokyo would be among those largely submerged by such a rise.

Above this mark too, other "devastating" and "irreversible" changes would be likely to take place. These include a cessation of the Indian monsoon and the ending of the Gulf Stream, which would dramatically worsen the climate in Britain and western Europe, even as the world warms. Another risk is the so-called "runaway greenhouse" where rising temperatures lead to the release of huge reservoirs methane stored in permafrost and the oceans, adding to global warming and starting a self-reinforcing cycle that would eventually make the earth uninhabitable.

To avoid such catastrophe, the report says that industrialised countries will have to cut emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide by at least 20 per cent by 2020, and by up to 60 per cent by 2050. The Kyoto Protocol would at best cut them by 5 per cent by 2012, and probably less, even if it were brought into force and fully implemented.

In the meantime the world looks as if it will greatly exceed the targets. Writing in The Independent on Sunday today, Michael Meacher, the former environment minister, calculates that global emissions of greenhouse gases could increase by 75 per cent by 2020, "putting the world well on the way to doomsday".


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Germany; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: capitals; climatechange; doomsday; endoftheworld; ice; inoftheworld; junkscience; leftistmedia; melting; swamp; theskyisfalling; weredoomed
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-136 next last
To: blam
Good thing I bought that "soon-to-be" beachfront land in Arizona.......
21 posted on 12/06/2003 4:28:08 PM PST by festus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Drammach
We are still recovering from the "little ice age" of the dark ages. We have not yet reached the global temperatures extant at the time Eric the Red discovered Newfoundland's shores. Let me say that again, (paraphrased) for effect. It's still colder globally, than it was 1,000 years ago.

Please! You think the proponents of these global warming theories are going to let something as silly as historical fact get in the way??

22 posted on 12/06/2003 4:28:41 PM PST by technomage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: blam
Check out this speech Remarks to the Commonwealth Club Michael Crichton (Theme: Environmentalism is really Urban Atheism)
23 posted on 12/06/2003 4:31:03 PM PST by Gritty ("Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism-Michael Crichton)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
It concludes that the protocol must urgently be brought into force, but only as a first step, insisting that "catastrophic" climate change "can now only be prevented if climate protection targets are set at substantially higher levels than those agreed internationally until now".

I'll start to do my part just as soon as The Independent shuts down its printing presses, which waste immense amounts of energy and tons of newsprint every single day to put out a paper that could just as easily be read online.

24 posted on 12/06/2003 4:31:20 PM PST by Timesink (I'm not a big fan of electronic stuff, you know? Beeps ... beeps freak me out. They're bad.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: technomage
Please! You think the proponents of these global warming theories are going to let something as silly as historical fact get in the way??

Of course not!
Thus, the derisive, jocular laughter.. ;0)

25 posted on 12/06/2003 4:32:27 PM PST by Drammach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: blam
"Global warming already kills 150,000 people a year"

This must please Planned Parenthood.

26 posted on 12/06/2003 4:33:01 PM PST by HarleyD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam; StopGlobalWhining
I want to know exactly how global warming is already killing 150,000 a year. How do they distinguish gobal warming deaths from other deaths?
27 posted on 12/06/2003 4:34:43 PM PST by Kay Ludlow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
Did they forget that the worlds oceans rose from 300-500 feet only 15,000 years ago.

History really isn't their strong suit.

28 posted on 12/06/2003 4:34:48 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (I shot an arrow in the air. / Where it falls I do not care. / I buy my arrows wholesale)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: redhead
Um, help me out here...ICE displaces water and raises the level. When it melts, the level subsides. What am I missing?

It's a pleasure to see a post from a real thinker!

The current interglacial period may continue for thousands of years.

The alternatives are the end of this ice age when all the ice is melted or an onset of a new ice age.

I'll take what we have now.

29 posted on 12/06/2003 4:35:14 PM PST by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN (so it is written, so it is done)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: redhead
Um, help me out here...ICE displaces water and raises the level. When it melts, the level subsides. What am I missing?

Thank you. I never have a puddle of water on the table when I let a glass of water and ice melt.

What are we both missing?
30 posted on 12/06/2003 4:35:40 PM PST by ridesthemiles (ridesthemiles)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: All
For those interested, here's a link to the site;

"German Advisory Council on Global Change"

http://www.wbgu.de/wbgu_home_engl.html

Please note:
The "secretariat" offers copies of their reports for free..

It would be interesting to see how much it would cost them to send copies to every Freeper in the U.S.A....
31 posted on 12/06/2003 4:35:41 PM PST by Drammach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: Timesink
WE"RE SURELY DOOMED!
32 posted on 12/06/2003 4:36:58 PM PST by PSYCHO-FREEP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Leroy S. Mort
The Marines actually ran an extensive operation where the hypothesis WAS flooded Capitals in 98 or 99. I think San Fran was the main exercise loc.

There are other ways to melt ice than 'global warming'.

33 posted on 12/06/2003 4:37:32 PM PST by txhurl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: blam
Global warming already kills 150,000 people a year

I assume that this statistic comes comes from inpartial and reliable sources? Did you know that 200,000 people annually die from strokes brought on by reading articles such as this one. Bet you my sources are as good as the global warming statistics.

34 posted on 12/06/2003 4:38:04 PM PST by JimSEA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Drammach
By the way Drammach, maybe you know something of this:

I have read that the Sun's activity has been steadily increasing for about the last 100 years and that this is a recurring cycle. Some suggest that this is one of the main reasons for temperature fluctuations here on Earth.

Plus, if true, the Sun's increased activity would correspond to the gradual (albeit historically small) global increase in temperatures over the past 100 years.

What say ye??

35 posted on 12/06/2003 4:38:21 PM PST by technomage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Kay Ludlow
They smell bad if you don't bury them right away.
36 posted on 12/06/2003 4:38:31 PM PST by U S Army EOD (When the EOD technician screws up, he is always the first to notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: blam
Melting Ice 'Will Swamp Capitals'

And the down side to this is?...

37 posted on 12/06/2003 4:39:32 PM PST by michigander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam
Personally, I'm more worried about the effects of flying monkey flatulence on the environment. Sure, everyone talks about flying monkey farts, but does anyone ever do anything about them?
38 posted on 12/06/2003 4:40:53 PM PST by Redcloak (<Insert clever tagline here>)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam; All
I am really apalled how you people can not take this serious and continue to joke about it. We really need to plan now in case this does happen.

First of all, for safety's sake, lets move the UN to Tibet next week.
39 posted on 12/06/2003 4:41:36 PM PST by U S Army EOD (When the EOD technician screws up, he is always the first to notice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: festus
Good thing I bought that "soon-to-be" beachfront land in Arizona.......

According to Edgar Cayce, Lawrence, KS will become a major seaport after the subsidence of the midwestern plains and the creation of the American Inland Sea.
Likewise, Pierre, SD.

It would be wise to invest in properties in these two areas as well.. (( insanity off ))

40 posted on 12/06/2003 4:41:43 PM PST by Drammach
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-136 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson