Report says global warming could spark conflict

[jameslofton29]

SLC, I read the book and articles about an 80's Ice Age many years ago. Before the net was available, so I dont have any links. You could look up the book I told you about, or type in '80's Ice Age' into a search engine. There has to be at least a few online articles about it.

[SLCPUNK]

I asked because I could not find any.

So I must conclude that it is not fair to compare one book (that I can't find) to the theory of global warming (which many support.)

[WhiteRose]

Published on Sunday, April 15, 2007 by New York Times

Global Warming Called Security Threat
By Andrew C. Revkin / Timothy Williams

WASHINGTON - For the second time in a month, private consultants to the government are warning that human-driven warming of the climate poses risks to the national security of the United States.A report, scheduled to be published on Monday but distributed to some reporters yesterday, said issues usually associated with the environment - like rising ocean levels, droughts and violent weather caused by global warming - were also national security concerns.

?Unlike the problems that we are used to dealing with, these will come upon us extremely slowly, but come they will, and they will be grinding and inexorable,? Richard J. Truly, a retired United States Navy vice admiral and former NASA administrator, said in the report.

The effects of global warming, the study said, could lead to large-scale migrations, increased border tensions, the spread of disease and conflicts over food and water. All could lead to direct involvement by the United States military.

The report recommends that climate change be integrated into the nation?s security strategies and says the United States ?should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability.?

The report, called ?National Security and the Threat of Climate Change,? was commissioned by the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-financed research group, and written by a group of retired generals and admirals called the Military Advisory Board.

In March, a report from the Global Business Network, which advises intelligence agencies and the Pentagon on occasion, concluded, among other things, that rising seas and more powerful storms could eventually generate unrest as crowded regions like Bangladesh?s sinking delta become less habitable,

One of the authors of the report, Peter Schwartz, a consultant who studies climate risks and other trends for the Defense Department and other clients, said the climate system, jogged by a century-long buildup of heat-trapping gases, was likely to rock between extremes that could wreak havoc in poor countries with fragile societies.

?Just look at Somalia in the early 1990s,? Mr. Schwartz said. ?You had disruption driven by drought, leading to the collapse of a society, humanitarian relief efforts, and then disastrous U.S. military intervention. That event is prototypical of the future.?

?Picture that in Central America or the Caribbean, which are just as likely,? he said. ?This is not distant, this is now. And we need to be preparing.?

Other recent studies have shown that drought and scant water have already fueled civil conflicts in global hot spots like Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan, according to several recent studies.

This bodes ill, given projections that human-driven warming is likely to make some of the world?s driest, poorest places drier still, experts said.

?The evidence is fairly clear that sharp downward deviations from normal rainfall in fragile societies elevate the risk of major conflict,? said Marc Levy of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which recently published a study on the relationship between climate and civil war.

Given that climate models project drops in rainfall in such places in a warming world, Mr. Levy said, ?It seems irresponsible not to take into account the possibility that a world with climate change will be a more violent world when making judgments about how tolerable such a world might be.?


Link to the article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/15/538/

For more information: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/

[Bodhi]

You meant I did all that reading for nothing??

Seriously..OK guys, show me a link were these scientists predicted the new ice age hit by the 80's....

Please.

I dont think it was the 80's, but I have people were trying to cause mass hysteria back in the 60's or 70's about Global Cooling..not sure if thats exactly what they called it then...but that eventually the earth was going to get too cold and we were goin to die..with no evidence whatsover...kind of like Global warming today...NO evidence whatsover...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

[WhiteRose]

I dont think it was the 80's, but I have people were trying to cause mass hysteria back in the 60's or 70's about Global Cooling..not sure if thats exactly what they called it then...but that eventually the earth was going to get too cold and we were goin to die..with no evidence whatsover...kind of like Global warming today...NO evidence whatsover...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200502/s1306233.htm

Scientists say global warming is undeniable

Scientists in the United States say they have confirmed beyond doubt that climate change is being caused by human activity.

The scientists have presented their findings to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington.

They say a parcel of studies looking at the oceans and melting Arctic ice leave no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, people are to blame and the weather is going to suffer.

Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography told the meeting that new computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well under way.

Mr Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures were weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there.

"The real place to look is in the ocean," Dr Barnett told a news conference.

Debate over

His team used millions of temperature readings made by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady ocean warming.

"The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," he said.

The report was published one day after the United Nations Kyoto Protocol took effect, a 141-nation environmental pact the United States government has spurned for several reasons, including stated doubts about whether global warming is occurring and is caused by people.

Dr Barnett urged US officials to reconsider.

"Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is clearly no," Dr Barnett said.

Dr Barnett's team used US government models of solar warming and volcanic warming, just to see if they could account for the measurements they made.

Dr Barnett says the results were a resounding no, and the effects will be felt far and wide.

"Anywhere that the major water source is fed by snow or glacial melt ... the debate is what are we going to do about it," he said.

Homeless polar bears

Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals.

Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean currents and, ultimately, climate.

"As the earth warms, its water cycle is changing, being pushed out of kilter," she said.

"Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet."

She added that a circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt is in danger of shutting down. The last time that happened, northern Europe suffered extremely cold winters.

She said the changes were already causing droughts in the west of the United States, and Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels globally by seven metres, is starting to melt and could collapse suddenly.

Ms Curry said freshwater is already percolating down, lubricating the base and making it more unstable.

Animals left homeless

Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply for a range of animals.

And the disappearing ice shelves meant big animals such as walruses, polar bears and seals were losing their homes.

"In 1997 there was a mass die-off of a bird called the short-tailed shearwater in the Bering Sea," Dr Smith told the news conference.

The birds, which migrate from Australia, starved to death for several years running when warmer waters caused a plankton called a coccolithophore to bloom in huge numbers, turning the water an opaque turquoise colour.

"The short-tailed shearwater couldn't see its prey," Dr Smith said.

-Reuters

[SLCPUNK]

NO evidence whatsover...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

There is plenty of evidence.

Most scientists do believe now that global warming is created by man.

[Verse Chorus Verse]

I`ll be dead in 2100.

And Axl's grandson will release Chinese Democracy in 2100.

Yup. And if I manage to live to 107, I'll eat my hat.

[Bodhi]

NO evidence whatsover...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

There is plenty of evidence.

Most scientists do believe now that global warming is created by man.

most scientists cant get grants unless they go along with global warming..i think it is typical ego of man..that we are so powerful and influential that we can impact our entire exisitence....like we are bigger than God....

[Booker Floyd]

most scientists cant get grants unless they go along with global warming..i think it is typical ego of man..that we are so powerful and influential that we can impact our entire exisitence....like we are bigger than God....

If there was a consensus among scientists that global warming is indeed occurring (I should note that Im speaking outside of actuality in order to indulge your viewpoint), would you accept it?

I also wonder if these anti-global warming scientists you refer to (equal in number to those who do accept it, according to you) agree with your "humans arent bigger than God" attitude.  Perhaps you have some new God data youd like to share?

[Booker Floyd]

Whenever I hear scientists talking with such certainty about gloabal warming I tend to remember that many of these same scientists were predicting a second ice age in the 80's.

Prove it.

[WhiteRose]

...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

ABC World News Tonight on Climate Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJM0goE7sr0

[Edward Rose]

Whenever I hear scientists talking with such certainty about gloabal warming I tend to remember that many of these same scientists were predicting a second ice age in the 80's.

Prove it.

Yeah, I say prove it too.

The funny thing about global warming is that it eventually leads to snow.

"Droughts and floods" in the definition of global warming is a simple way of saying "Weather extremes." And the extreme we have to worry about more than anything is snow. The thing that f**ks us is when too much snow covers too much of the land mass in the northern part of the planet in one season. (Because the top of our planet has more land mass distribution than the bottom) This causes too much of the sun's radiation to reflect back into space and sets off a domino effect of snow, snow and more snow. And it all happens in one season, and then all hell breaks loose and we're f***ed from then on.

And did I mention the snow? 

This is the reason why some people don't understand why the term "Ice Age" is used in the same conversation as "Global Warming."

[Mal Brossard]

My favorite are the ones who say when our winters are warmer than normal that it's global warming, but when they're colder than normal that it's also global warming.  Hey skeezix, pick one and stick to it.

[Edward Rose]

My favorite are the ones who say when our winters are warmer than normal that it's global warming, but when they're colder than normal that it's also global warming.  Hey skeezix, pick one and stick to it.

Maybe it's because the media doesn't really WANT anyone to understand global warming. Because the truth is the same story as that wolly mammoth who was found with undigested food in his stomach. It'll start with one snow storm and then it's over for us... and it could happen The Day After Tomorrow 

[Izzy]

My favorite are the ones who say when our winters are warmer than normal that it's global warming, but when they're colder than normal that it's also global warming.? Hey skeezix, pick one and stick to it.

well they aint that far of the mark - the effect of Global warming on the UK will eventually make the country colder, whereas it will turn Italy into a desert

I'm just glad people are aware of it, that has to be a step towards doing something about it

[25]

Whenever I hear scientists talking with such certainty about gloabal warming I tend to remember that many of these same scientists were predicting a second ice age in the 80's.

Prove it.

I hope he can prove it. It would pretty much validate all of that 70s and 80s research, as Global Warming would lead to an ice-age of sorts. Win-win situation for the scientists.

[norway]

It's sad that politicians decide what and how science is presentated, I hope the world do what can be done

[The Estranged MrFlashbax]

look at europe and look how close it is to the north pole. if europe stopped being warm, it'd need a lot more oil that it consumes now in order to keep their people alive. if they needed so much more oil, they'd have to get em from other nations and other places as well. in order to do that, they'd have to fight off a lot of other hungry customers of this black gold.

the gulf stream is what keeps europe as warm as it is considering how close europe is to the north pole. if anything were to interfere with the gulf stream, europe just might be the first part of the world to go into the next ice age. a few weeks ago, the gulf stream had stopped. 

i believe there's nothing we can do to fuck up the earth.. all we can do is kill ourselves off. statistically speaking, the earth has had an ice age at an "average" rate of every 10,000 years.. by that sense, we're 2,000 years overdue for another one.

all the people saying that us burning oil and releasing methane in the air is what's causing the increase in temp. historically speaking, its proven that in the past, when temperatures increased, the levels of methane increased.. not the other way around. its not the methane that's causing the temperature increase, its the temperature increase that's causing the excess amounts of methane because of all the methane gasses trapped in glaciers and polar ice caps that get released once they melt.

so i believe that us humans can kill ourselves off and do whatever the fuck we want but the earth will go through its motions as it always has and the worst we could possibly do to it is nuke its land surface and make it inhabitable for humans and/or mammals at best.

[The Estranged MrFlashbax]

You meant I did all that reading for nothing? 

Seriously..OK guys, show me a link were these scientists predicted the new ice age hit by the 80's....

Please.

I dont think it was the 80's, but I have people were trying to cause mass hysteria back in the 60's or 70's about Global Cooling..not sure if thats exactly what they called it then...but that eventually the earth was going to get too cold and we were goin to die..with no evidence whatsover...kind of like Global warming today...NO evidence whatsover...for every scientist that says it exists there is another who says it doesnt....if its such a proven fact how come we are all not agreeing on it?

well.. there was a "little ice age" that only ended around 1850 which isn't too long ago considering the earth's age

[Vicious Wishes]

It's impossible that global warming could spark conflict because everyone on the planet agrees that man is causing global warming.... I mean the earth has never, ever gone through periods of cooling and warming, and cooling and warming...(the safe bet is it's America's fault).