Top Nobel laureates issue Global Warming Memorandum

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Mario Molina (Nobel prize in chemistry 1995) signs the Stockholm Memorandum

Top Nobel laureates issue Global Warming Memorandum



Last Wednesday, 17 Nobel laureates who gathered in Stockholm have published a remarkable memorandum, asking for “fundamental transformation and innovation in all spheres and at all scales in order to stop and reverse global environmental change. We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems. We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial.” The Stockholm Memorandum - tipping the scales towards sustainability concludes that we have entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene, where humanity has become the main driver of global change. And they give specific recommendations in eight key priority areas. Including: “Keep global warming below 2ºC, implying a peak in global CO2 emissions no later than 2015 and recognize that even a warming of 2ºC carries a very high risk of serious impacts and the need for major adaptation efforts.”

Of course, the Merchants of Doubt weren't idle. A small group of climate change skeptics from Lyndon LaRouche's group were outside with banners proclaiming "Stop Green Fascism!," handing out pamphlets warning attendees “global warming is a hoax” and “global temperatures were lies.”

Of course, time is running out. The United States still has no long term effective policy in place, and several tipping points are looming ahead. The pity is, the further along we get, the more drastic any potential solution will become. The biggest fear is the release of methane from melting permafrost in the Northern hemispheres. Methane is 20 times more powerful than Co2 for retaining heat and blocking its escape.



Bonus round: "The "Temp Leads Carbon" Crock" where an examination is made of one of the big canards raised by global warming deniers.

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Here is my question for them.

If they really believe this...

"Last Wednesday, 17 Nobel laureates who gathered in Stockholm have published a remarkable memorandum, asking for “fundamental transformation and innovation in all spheres and at all scales in order to stop and reverse global environmental change. We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems. We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial.” The Stockholm Memorandum - tipping the scales towards sustainability concludes that we have entered a new geological era: the Anthropocene, where humanity has become the main driver of global change. And they give specific recommendations in eight key priority areas. Including: “Keep global warming below 2ºC, implying a peak in global CO2 emissions no later than 2015 and recognize that even a warming of 2ºC carries a very high risk of serious impacts and the need for major adaptation efforts.”"

Then where are their biological weapons?

This is a very serious question because the only way to achieve that goal would be the rapid eradication of somewhere around 1/3rd of the living human population.

In other words their proposed solutions are nowhere near realistic enough for the claimed seriousness of the problem. It does not matter how important something is, if it is impossible it still will not happen and carbon neutrality will not happen in the next 50 years unless we cut the global population by a whole lot and then take action to ensure it never gets that large again.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

This is a very serious question because the only way to achieve that goal would be the rapid eradication of somewhere around 1/3rd of the living human population.

Shenanigans. Show me your work.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

If you read the PDF, the laureates specifically mentioned human reproduction education as an important element in any such plans for making the Earth more sustainable. In case you missed it: here it is:

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

They shouldn't need to. Do your part and kill yourself.

I need a good evil icon

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I like it...we nuke China and Russia out of existence (granting India would be better than Russia population wise, but my d-i-l has relatives that live there) and then just hope the fallout doesn't cause climate change....maybe biological is better.

Seriously, do these people really think thru what they are saying???

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I call global soshulist konspirrssy!

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

No it is just the ghost of Malthus being resurrected again.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Let's stop global warming before AIDS, malaria, and hunger!

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because we can only do one thing at a time.

[bex.livejournal.com]

Because it's totally impossible to work on the solutions to multiple problems at the same time!

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I guess just like rasilio, you didn't read anything before you posted your comment. The specific points raised by the Nobel laureates are great sidebar to airiefairie's fantastic post earlier today. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1013686.html)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Wait, AIDS & malaria? Aren't those part of that "health care" thing that doesn't even make Maslow's top 20?

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

A few questions for deniers:

1) What would it take to you convince you that, at least in part, climate change is being caused by man-made activities.

2) Which is more important to you: the economy, or the environment.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Ya know, at some point: it's like arguing with 9/11 Troofers, creationists, no-Moon-landings, New World Order types: you just gotta cut your losses and move on, and focus on the public at large.

And of course, point out the connections with antiglobal warming think tanks with the tobacco industry's use of these very same tactics: create doubt about the scientific community's work on the issue. There isn't a single body scientific body in the world that has refuted human based global warming as a theory.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

What would it take to you convince you

My fave question actually. When all other options are exhausted and you just wonder how is it possible that you're still talking to a brick wall (and, horror - the wall is responding to you!), you really start to devise desperate things... ;)

Another version of that question: "Which criteria would make you feel comfortable enough?"

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

> 2) Which is more important to you: the economy, or the environment.

Can't we have both? Please, I don't want to have to choose either-or...

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I assume you're bundling me in with this - I don't deny it's happening, I just can't see us actually doing anything about it, and can't see us prioritizing it if we could. It's not worth the tradeoff.

2) Which is more important to you: the economy, or the environment.

The economy. People living > people not living because we're too busy trying to stop something we probably can't.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't know since I am not a Denier.

Global change is a constant. It is always happening. Some of the global change we are witnessing today can only be explained through anthropogenic causes. What percentage of that change is at the hands of man and how serious of a problem (assuming it is even a problem to begin with) are open questions that the scientific community has NOT settled however.

Where I do have serious problems with the consensus view on climate change is that if the problem is anywhere near as bad as they want us to believe, literally threatening the existence of our species unless we take immediate and drastic action then why are their proposals on what needs to be done so lukewarm? The fact is that if things are that bad then the world cannot support a population of 6 billion humans at any technology level and probably not more than about 3 - 4 billion in a high tech modern society and the problem has reached the point where small cuts in the birth rate in the 3rd world will save us because that still means hitting a total population of over 9 billion and staying above the sustainable rate for the next couple of hundred years.

Ultimately if you believe that global warming is an imminent threat to the existence of our species then the only possible solution is the murder of a huge percentage of the global population.

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Glad someone liked it ;) YAY!!

Science provides Knowledge--not Policy

[russj.livejournal.com]

While we all agree that the climate is changing, and that science has given us a lot of knowledge about it--that does not mean that scientists are qualified to make policy decisions.

Policy decisions have to be made based on our shared values. If our primary value is to preserve the climate as it was forty years ago, then we will want to reverse current climate trends. If we wish it to be as it was during the medieval warm period, we may not care if it get a bit warmer.

If we wish to create a world government with top-down, cradle-to-grave planning, we will use scientific findings to scare people with a worst-case possible scenario and use it to promote our agenda.

We we understand that proposals like the Kyoto treaty will cripple our economy without ANY measurable effect upon the climate, we know that we are being sold bunch of hogwash, and will work on more important things--like eliminating poverty, war, injustice, and disease.

Re: Science provides Knowledge--not Policy

[telemann.livejournal.com]

So you're pretty much in agreement with Lyndon LaRouche's group "Fight Green Fascism!"

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Well, back to nobel prizes not mattering again.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Really.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, now that I have had time to actually read the PDF Please tell me what This...

"1. Reaching a more equitable world
Unequal distribution of the benefits of economic development are at the root of
The Stockholm Memorandum4
poverty. Despite efforts to address poverty, more than a third of the world’s population
still live on less than $2 per day. This needs our immediate attention. Environment and
development must go hand in hand. We need to:
 Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, in the spirit of the Millennium
Declaration, recognising that global sustainability is a precondition of success.
 Adopt a global contract between industrialized and developing countries to
scale up investment in approaches that integrate poverty reduction, climate
stabilization, and ecosystem stewardship."


have to do with global warming and if global warming is such a threat why is it FIRST on their policy recommendations?

Whatever the validity of the science backing their global warming claims they will never gain any traction as long as they keep associating themselves with socialist goals of fairness and equality as preconditions to dealing with global warming.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

zzzzzzz (http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/)

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

What caused global warming and global cooling in the past?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

If this is about the warmer temperatures of the Mesozoic, let's also remember the world of the Mesozoic was arid, rather desert-like, and supported giant, bad-tempered reptiles. Not exactly a world on which human civilization would survive, which is why at least mitigating climate change is a good idea. Unless you're some anarcho-primitivist dittohead who thinks that people 30,000 years after the end of the Neanderthals should live like the cavemen for LULZ.