Al Gore on the threats to civilization

[bananas]

Discussing global warming before the Senate, Al Gore said that, next to nuclear war, global warming is the greatest threat to civilization:

"alongside the potential for some nuclear exchange,
which is a possibility that thankfully has been
receding over the last couple of decades,
this is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoYi2DGxABs&feature=PlayList&p=AA1657A7C7F28443&index=8

Al Gore is correct.

According to BAS, the greatest threat to civilization is still nuclear war:

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoYi2DGxABs&feature=PlayList&p=AA1657A7C7F28443&index=8

According to PNAS, even a small nuclear exchange will have devastating environmental effects globally:

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14.toc

Table of Contents
April 8, 2008; 105 (14)

<snip>

Environmental Sciences

<snip>

From the Cover: Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict

<snip>

More information on the devastating environmental effects of nuclear war: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/nuclear/

[Viva_Daddy]

1. As it turrns out, the greatest threat to human civilization is...

Human Civilization.

[bananas]

17. Correction: the second link in the OP should be The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

"Doomsday Clock Overview": http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

It's 5 minutes to midnight.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I think I'd put it slightly differently

Nuclear war is the most immediate threat, in that conceivably, one could break out today. On the other hand, I think "Global Warming" may represent the greater threat, since simply by living our lives as we have, we may bring on the eventual end of civilization. (It just won't happen today.)

Of course, there's the distinct possibility that as "Global Warming" takes hold, competition between nations, and mass migrations of "environmental refugees," will lead to larger and larger scale warfare, and eventually to all-out Nuclear war.


FWIW: In his prepared Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gore apparently did not mention nuclear war:
http://blog.algore.com/2009/01/statement_to_the_senate_foreig.html

Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

January 28, 2009 : 10:28 AM

We are here today to talk about how we as Americans and how the United States of America as part of the global community should address the dangerous and growing threat of the climate crisis.

We have arrived at a moment of decision. Our home - Earth - is in grave danger. What is at risk of being destroyed is not the planet itself, of course, but the conditions that have made it hospitable for human beings.

Moreover, we must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan.

As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread – our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels. As long as we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollars for foreign oil – year after year - to the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world, our national security will continue to be at risk.

…

[bananas]

16. Deterrence failure is a statistical certainty

according to estimates by Martin Hellman:

Hellman is a co-inventor of public key cryptography, the technology that secures communication of credit card and other sensitive information over the Internet.

<snip>

On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes.

<snip>

http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

[OKIsItJustMe]

22. No, (even if I accept the 1% figure.)

Where did the figure of 1% come from?

http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

…

The Cuban Missile Crisis provides a good example of how to estimate that final probability. President Kennedy estimated the odds of the crisis going nuclear as "somewhere between one-in-three and even." His Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, wrote that he didn't expect to live out the week, supporting an estimate similar to Kennedy's. At the other extreme McGeorge Bundy, who was one of Kennedy's advisors during the crisis, estimated those odds at 1%.

…

Now, that's not scientifically calculated odds of an all-out nuclear war, that's someone pulling a number out of their as the air for the odds of a confrontation and at the height of the "cold war."

If I can pick any number I want, I pick .00001% (now what are the odds?)

But, let's run with that 1% figure for a moment. Over the span of 100 years, that gives about a ⅔'s (63%) probability of a nuclear war, and a little bit more than ⅓ (37%) probabililty of avoiding one entirely. (Definitely not a "statistical certainty.")

[bananas]

28. When IEEE Spectrum reported on Hellman's estimates,

published in a different article than the Soaring article I linked to, they wrote:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr08/6099

<snip>

Nuclear deterrence could fail by a terrorist event, a command-and-control error, or a Cold War meltdown like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Hellman writes in the spring issue of The Bent of Tau Beta Pi, the magazine of the engineering honor society.

<snip>

Hellman’s method isn’t unfamiliar to those trying to gauge the risk of failure for complex systems, such as nuclear reactors. IEEE Spectrum asked J. Wesley Hines, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee, to examine Hellman’s methods, which were detailed in the appendix of the Bent article. “I only read the appendix but feel his argument is rational and also feel his methods are justified,” says Hines. “Some could argue with the numbers he used, but he does give logical reasons for using those numbers and admits that they have large uncertainties since the events have been rare in the past.”

Robert N. Charette, who runs the risk-management consultancy ITABHI and is a regular contributor to IEEE Spectrum, agrees with Hines.

<snip>

Hellman calls for prestigious scientific and engineering bodies, such as the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, to do a far more careful and nuanced analysis of nuclear deterrence and its alternatives than he has. “If the results are anywhere near my preliminary estimate, then the world needs to be 10 000 times safer,” he says.

To Probe Further

Hellman has set up a Web site related to his nuclear deterrence work. From there you can download the Bent article. You can also view a statement signed by Richard L. Garwin, who came up with the design for the first hydrogen bomb; Admiral Bobby R. Inman, former director of the National Security Agency; and Nobel Laureate Martin L. Perl, among others, endorsing Hellman's push for a thorough risk analysis of nuclear deterrence.

The Bent article pdf is at http://nuclearrisk.org/paper.pdf
Hellman's website is http://nuclearrisk.org

[OKIsItJustMe]

31. Sure, his method is valid, if you accept the 1% probability figure

However, I don't see where any scientific method has been used to assign it.

Further (as I explained) a 1% probability of a full-scale nuclear war in any given year, does not lead to a statistical certainty in 100 years.

To asses the probability, you only need to follow a simple calculation. If we know the odds of a full-scale nuclear war occurring in any given year are 1 in 100, then the odds of full-scale nuclear war not occurring in that year are 99 in 100 (99%.)

The odds of a full-scale nuclear war not occurring in 2 given years are the odds of it not occurring in the first year, multiplied by the odds of it not occurring in the second year (99% * 99%) or (approximately) 98%. This gives us about a 2% chance of it occurring in one of those 2 years, which is intuitive.

From this, you may think that the odds of a full-scale nuclear war occurring in 100 years are 100% (a "statistical certainty") but they are not.

The odds of a full-scale nuclear war not occurring in 100 years are calculated by multiplying the odds of it not occurring in any of those 100 years. 99%^{100 (years)} or (approximately) 36% (which may not be intuitive.)

The odds (therefore) of a full-scale nuclear war occurring in any given century are (approximately) 100%-36% or (approximately) 64%.


However, all of these calculations are dependent on a couple of very sketchy assumptions:

1. The odds of a full-scale nuclear war occurring in any given year are 1 in 100. (Determined how exactly?)
2. The odds of a full-scale nuclear war occurring in any given year are the same as them occurring in any other given year. (Which ignores factors like the political climate.)

[kristopher]

32. I understand your point

Your writing constitutes a dismissal of the author's entire argument by presenting the 1% figure as something he pulled out of his ass. While the figure isn't concrete, in the context of the paper and the argument presented it hardly deserves the Limbaughian type of treatment you are subjecting it to.

"How risky are nuclear weapons?
Amazingly, no one seems to know.

I'm Martin Hellman, a professor at Stanford University. When I started this project, I tried to find studies which estimated the risk of our current approach to nuclear weapons. I also asked prominent authorities on nuclear weapons, national security, and risk analysis if they knew of any such studies. I found nothing.

So I did a preliminary analysis of the risk we face and found that it was equivalent to having your home surrounded by thousands of nuclear power plants. I published that analysis in a paper (PDF download) which urgently calls for more detailed studies to either confirm or correct that startling conclusion.

Informed, subjective estimates support the need for in-depth studies. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry puts the odds of a nuclear terrorist attack in the next ten years at 50-50. Indiana Republican Senator Richard Lugar's survey of 85 national security experts reached a similarly alarming conclusion....
That is the way the 1% figure you are fixated on is introduced by the author on his website.

He begins his paper with these words:
The first fundamental canon of The Code of Ethics for Engineers adopted by Tau Beta Pi states that “Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties.” When we design systems, we routinely use large safety factors to account for unforeseen circumstances.

The Golden Gate Bridge was designed with a safety factor several times the anticipated load. This “over design” saved the bridge, along with the lives of the 300,000 people who thronged onto it in 1987 to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. The weight of all those people presented a load that was several times the design load1, visibly flattening the bridge’s arched roadway. Watching the roadway deform, bridge engineers feared that the span might collapse, but engineering conservatism saved the day.

Similarly, current nuclear-reactor designs require that the failure rate for a significant release of radioactivity be less than 10-6 per reactor per year. Estimating such small failure rates is difficult because they depend on events which have never happened, and which we hope never will.

Even so, order of magnitude estimates are possible using tools such as fault or event trees. In these approaches, the failure rates of small events (e.g., the failure of a cooling pump or a backup system) and conditional probabilities are combined to produce an overall failure rate for the much rarer catastrophic event that results when a critical subset of those partial failures occurs...

Now do you have any comments on the meat of the argument the author is making?

[OKIsItJustMe]

33. The meat of the argument is fine

Years ago, I worked with folks who did similar calculations. In their case, they were figuring out the MTBF of computer systems that would be used in critical applications.

They were quite good at their job. They'd look at a schematic for a system which didn't exist, and count and classify solder joints, and various components. Then, based on a history of failure rates for each, they'd estimate a failure rate for the entire system. They would also make recommendations of how the reliability of a system could be improved. (As I said, they were quite good. It was on that job that I first developed a real appreciation for the power of probabilities and statistics.)

If a new system included some new component that they didn't have a failure history for, they'd estimate a failure rate, based on similar components.

But, when a system included some new technology, that they didn't have a good failure rate for… well, that was a problem.


When we're talking about the odds of an all-out nuclear war, we're talking about something for which we have no failure rate to guide us. What are the odds (for example) that if terrorists set off a "suitcase bomb" tomorrow in NYC that we would send missiles to destroy Moscow? (How many times has someone set off a suitcase bomb in a major US city? What were our reactions at those times?)

What are the odds, that if a large flock of birds appeared on radar screens in Kiev that the Russians would launch a retaliatory strike against our cities? (Well, based on the current failure rate, approximately 0%, but that seems too low, doesn't it?)


How do you assign odds for these things, when we don't have any history for them?

1% is such a crisp, confident figure.

[kristopher]

34. Still can't admit you are off base...

"1% is such a crisp, confident figure"

That is a perfect Rush Limbaugh type argument. At no point does the author present 1% in a manner that is comparable to your usage.

You claim we have no history for the specific failures that you present, therefore (your argument implies) we are unable to make any type of valid estimate of the chances of failure of this complex system. However, don't we, in fact, know that complex systems have an inevitable failure rate that can be established independent of the specific variables involved in each system? If I have a system with 10 basic components I can expect a different failure rate than if the system has 10,000 components. For the author to use 1% as a starting point for a system as complex as one involving the command, control and deployment of nuclear weapons seems reasonable; especially since the point of the paper is to encourage the examination of the risks associated with nuclear war in a manner that has not previously been used. He makes absolutely no claim to the certitude you falsely attribute to him.

[OKIsItJustMe]

35. Actually, I don't think you understand my objection

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=185354&mesg_id=185467
"Deterrence failure is a statistical certainty"

OK, so looking at his soaring article in a little greater detail:

…

In this intuitive approach I first ask people whether they think the world could survive 1,000 years that were similar to 20 repetitions of the last 50 years. Do they think we could survive 20 Cuban Missile Crises plus all the other nuclear near misses we have experienced? When asked that question, most people do not believe we could survive 1,000 such years. I then ask if they think we can survive another 10 years of business as usual, and most say we probably can. There's no guarantee, but we've made it through 50 years, so the odds are good that we can make it through 10 more. In the order of magnitude approach, we have now bounded the time horizon for a failure of nuclear deterrence as being greater than 10 years and less than 1,000. That leaves 100 years as the only power of ten in between. Most people thus estimate that we can survive on the order of 100 years, which implies a failure rate of roughly 1% per year.

…

OK, let's look at his assumptions:

• Deterrence will fail.
  • This is implicit in his argument. It's not a matter of if, but when. That's a pretty big assumption, but if we make the assumption that it won't fail, the calculations become too easy. ;-)
• The next 50 years, will resemble the previous 50 years, i.e. the height of the "cold war." (Including the "Cuban Missile Crisis," and other lesser near misses…) and the next 50 years will resemble them, and so on, and so on… kind of like "Groundhog Half Century."
  • Did the last 50 years resemble the 50 years before them? (How many world wars did we fight in those years? Did "post-war" tensions affect the risks of the last 50 years?)
  • Would we react to a terrorist nuclear attack the same way we would have reacted to a Soviet preemptive strike?
• The people he talks to have a pretty good idea of the risk factors involved.
  • Who are these people?
  • Are we determining risk or perceived risk?
  • If we did a similar survey of people to determine probable sea level rise due to "Global Warming" by the year 2100, how much credence would you give it?
• Having established boundaries (i.e. more than 10 years but less than 1,000 years) he fixes upon 100 years as the time of destruction.
  • OK (assuming we accept his boundaries) why not? It's an order of magnitude.
• Having established that the world will certainly be destroyed in 100 years, he calculates a risk for any given year, "roughly 1% per year."
  • Well… 1% is not a good figure for this, not for 100% in 100 years, 3% would be a better figure, but hey, what the heck, this way he doesn't have to explain the math. Of course, then we can ask the question of our http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=661">Delphi pool, "What do you think? Are the odds about 1 in 30 that we will have a "nuclear Armageddon" this year?"

Having started with the assumption that deterrence will fail, he comes up with a guess of when it will fail, then based on that, determines odds of it failing. (It seems the odds are pretty good, if you start your calculations with the certainty that it will fail.)


Yeah, I think there's a great deal of uncertainty here. Would it be a good idea to do some better calculations? Yes, and that's what Hellman calls for.


However, my real objection is the conclusion that nuclear Armeggedon, is a greater risk than "Global Warming." There is considerable risk involved with nuclear war, but it is by no means a certainty.

On the other hand, if we continue on our present course, "Global Warming" will have dire consequences.

I don't know if it's valid to place either ahead of the other as the "greater risk." However, if forced to pick one, I'll go with the sure bet of "Global Warming."

[bananas]

39. I'm glad you appreciate that

because I used to do that,
and it's always nice to be appreciated! :)
Thanks! :toast:

When I said that deterrence failure was a statistical certainty,
I didn't say within 100 years,
I meant it would fail eventually,
unless we took steps to reduce that likelihood.

I'm glad Obama jumped on this issue as quickly as he did:

"In December, Kissinger - now 85-years-old - secretly flew into the Russian capital at the request of then President-elect Barack Obama. Kissinger was there to sound out the Kremlin on a bilateral reduction of nuclear weapons, the paper says."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3726592

[OKIsItJustMe]

40. It was an experience of "Hey! This stuff really works!"

The reason I was hired was to work on a failure history database (to help establish failure rates.) One of my favorite experiences was when the failure rate for a particular component, in a particular computer system increased fast enough to trip a chi-square test I'd recently put into the database.

"What's going on here?" I asked the "reliability" guy in charge of that program (who'd been the one to request the automatic chi-square test.) We got together with the guys in charge of that testing lab, and discussed the problem over coffee. It turned out, they'd fairly recently hired a new guy, and he didn't trust that particular component, so it was frequently the first thing he replaced! (My supervisor asked if maybe they could find him a less expensive component to replace first.)

[markva]

3. super cereal this time, we are DOOOMED!!!!!

Manbearpig's dire predictions! Still waiting here at appox 3' above sea level (Tidewater VA) for the first inch of his promised 20' sea level rise. Lets see- hes been saying this for what.... 20 years now. And his $100,000,000 windfall via carbon credits is quite the deal for him. Any reasonable people still believe this man, and if so, why???

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. 20 years, and no rise? Interesting

Is Virginia immune? Nope, apparently not.
http://www.lternet.edu/vignettes/vcr.html

…

At the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER the rate of relative sea level rise has been 3.5 mm/yr. over the 20th century, 1.0 mm/yr. of which is due to the eustatic sea-level rise …

I wonder what's so special about your patch of shoreline…

[markva]

5. so sorry

It should be apparent to you that I was being sarcastic. Maybe the seas do rise somewhat (inches or fractions of inches). Surely you don't think they never fall as well. If serious people believed in Al Gores theories (20' rise in 10 years) then property here and everywhere else near the coasts could be had for a song. None of the local shipyards, naval bases etc seem to have any concerns about such things and have not had to abandon or modify any of their facilities. Do you believe that the owners would ignore any threat to their investments and stand by if they were at risk of flooding? And many of these same installations have been here since the colonial times, and have not lost any waterfront property. Come visit Jamestown or Ft Monroe, see for yourself. Forgive me, I did not realize you had a chart, which is certainly accurate and tells the truth of things to come. After all, its a chart isn't it!! Keep on believing if you like!!! Manbearpig!!!

[stuntcat]

6. fantastic

thank you, markva

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. "20' rise in 10 years" (!?)

Al Gore never said anything about a 20' rise in 10 years. Where did you get that idea?

FWIW:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-03/uoa-pmm031506.php

Public release date: 23-Mar-2006

Contact: Mari N. Jensen
[e-mail]
520-626-9635
University of Arizona

Polar melting may raise sea level sooner than expected

The Earth's warming temperatures are on track to melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets sooner than previously thought and ultimately lead to a global sea level rise of at least 20 feet, according to new research.

If the current warming trends continue, by 2100 the Earth will likely be at least 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than present, with the Arctic at least as warm as it was nearly 130,000 years ago. At that time, significant portions of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets melted, resulting in a sea level about 20 feet (six meters) higher than present day.

These studies are the first to link Arctic and Antarctic melting during the Last Interglaciation, 129,000 to 116,000 years ago.

"This is a real eye-opener set of results," said study co-author Jonathan T. Overpeck of The University of Arizona in Tucson. "The last time the Arctic was significantly warmer than present day, the Greenland Ice Sheet melted back the equivalent of two to three meters (about six to ten feet) of sea level."

…

[stuntcat]

8. (but..)

it should be apparent to you that he was being sarcastic :crazy: ;)

I'm sorry!! I couldn't help myself, carry on y'all!!

[markva]

10. suvs

Geez- who was driving those hummers and Escalades 130,000 yrs ago???? I thought it was all mankinds fault. I really think Big Al should give up his Gulfstream and giant house if he really believes all this.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Educate yourself

There are natural cycles (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles">Milankovitch Cycles") which have kicked off rises in "Greenhouse Gases" in the past. (Basically, a little bit of warming causes some releases, which leads to more warming, etc.)


130,000 years ago (or so) the CO₂ levels hit a peak of about 280ppm (which is roughly the same level they've hit a number of times.) For the last half a million years or so, they've gone (roughly) between 180ppm and 280ppm.



Today, they're at about 380ppm. (Now, how do you suppose they did that?) Let's see, do you know of any significant sources of CO₂?

[bananas]

18. Al Gore never said 20' rise in 10 years

I hate to break it to you, but "South Park" isn't real, it's just a cartoon.

[Viking12]

21. Gore never said 20' in 10 years. You're a liar.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Measured Sea Level Rise in Virginia

Educate yourself!

http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_states.shtml?region=va

Mean Sea Level Trend
8632200 Kiptopeke, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8635150 Colonial Beach, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8635750 Lewisetta, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8637624 Gloucester Point, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8638610 Sewells Point, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8638660 Portsmouth, Virginia

---

Mean Sea Level Trend
8638863 Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Virginia

[markva]

12. charts

These charts you present only date from the 70s in most cases. The rest of it is simply a trend. Its complete speculation when you can only go back 40 yrs or so. How long are you trying to imply that the seas have been rising? Do you think that just maybe this very short term data is cancelled out by lowering levels in the 1800s maybe. One more question- exactly what is the best, most natural temperature for the planet? Do you know for sure? Also if mankind is causing the troubles you seem to believe then why has the earths temp varied so widely long before man arrived? We can play dueling charts all day long, no one seems to be interested in answering any questions that I have put out. Such as:
1> Why does no one seem to acknowledge sun spot activity in terms of varying temp?
2> How can mankind be to blame when we can only produce approx .08 % of co2 in atmosphere?
3> If AGW is to blame for all the hurricanes, then why did they exist long before the automobile?
4> Why won't Al Gore debate anyone if he is so sure of his "science"

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Educate yourself

1) Sunspot activity (the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle">solar cycle) has a small effect.
2) Let's say (for example) that there is a boulder perfectly balanced on a pillar of rock. The boulder weighs several tons, you weigh just a fraction of its weight. You climb up on it, and it rolls off, killing you. Quick, who caused it to roll? (The "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle">Carbon Cycle" is pretty closely balanced, but is capable of dealing with some temporary fluctuation. On the other hand, it cannot deal very well with a constant imbalance.)
3) Global warming is not to blame for all hurricanes. It may be responsible for an apparent recent increase in storm frequency and intensity. Read more here: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/glob_warm_hurr_webpage.html#section1
4) I won't debate anyone on whether the world is flat or not, or whether the holocaust really took place or not, or whether the Apollo astronauts really landed on the Moon or not. However, Al Gore has not presented himself as a scientist, he has merely presented the findings of scientists. (Do you understand the difference?) Perhaps more interesting is climate scientists debating "An Inconvenient Truth." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414115107.htm

Don't get hung up on Al Gore. Trust the experts. Here's a series of publications by US Government experts:
http://www.climatescience.gov/
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090116_climate.html
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/ACC097A034222A7E852575400053055C
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2110&from=rss_home
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jan/HQ_09-009_Aerosols_report.html
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2109&from=rss_home

[bananas]

15. Regarding his statement on sea level rise

The climate scientists at realclimate.org back him up:

4 September 2008
How much will sea level rise?

<snip>

There have certainly been incorrect assertions and headlines implying that 20 ft of sea level by 2100 was expected, but they are mostly based on a confusion of a transient rise with the eventual sea level rise which might take hundreds to thousands of years. And before someone gets up to say Al Gore, we'll point out preemptively that he made no prediction for 2100 or any other timescale. The nearest thing I can find is Jim Hansen who states that "it almost inconceivable that BAU climate change would not yield a sea level change of the order of meters on the century timescale". But that is neither a specific prediction for 2100, nor necessarily one that is out of line with the Pfeffer et al's bounds.

<snip>

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/how-much-will-sea-level-rise/

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. Furthermore, James Hansen (the other boogeyman for the "skeptics")

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526141.600-huge-sea-level-rises-are-coming--unless-we-act-now.html

…

I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?

…

As an example, let us say that ice sheet melting adds 1 centimetre to sea level for the decade 2005 to 2015, and that this doubles each decade until the West Antarctic ice sheet is largely depleted. This would yield a rise in sea level of more than 5 metres by 2095.

…

[hatrack]

24. Oh, you watch South Park?!? No WONDER your arguments are so logical & persuasive!!

Gosh, talk about your Category 5 hurricane of unstoppable empiricism & city-destroying logic!!

:eyes:

[OKIsItJustMe]

26. It's difficult to sway by logic, an opinion which is held by faith

You cannot dispute reasoning which is not there.

[hatrack]

29. Misplaced Snark Effort on my part, but at least it made ME feel better!

:toast:

[NNadir]

13. Bullshit. You don't give a fuck about actual wars, and like everything else

elevate your nuclear imagination over reality.

As usual, your scaremongering based on your fantasies is oblivious to what is actually happening.

Duck! Cover! Watch Out!

A cosmic ray from outer space!

I cannot account for the stupidity and ignorance I hear from the anti-nuke cults, which can't seem to figure out that the number of nuclear wars since 1945 has been zero while the number of people killed in dangerous fossil fuel wars since then has been in the millions.

As usual, the anti-nuke cults focus entirely on stuff out of science fiction novels and show no insight to the reality in actual science accounts.

Nuclear energy need not be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else, including the shit that anti-nukes couldn't care less about. It merely needs to be superior to everything else, which it is.

The anti-nuke cults seem not to appreciate that they not only oppose the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free primary energy, but they also oppose the largest tool in nuclear disarmament. This bullshit filed in the OP seems oblivious to the fact that the contents of thousands of former Soviet nuclear warheads ended up in US nuclear reactors, where it provided more than 20% of the electricity produced in the US in the last decade.

The person who negotiated the treaty that allowed this to happen was named Al Gore.

[bananas]

19. Those are direct quotes from Gore, BAS, and PNAS

The second link in the OP should be to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists "Doomsday Clock Overview":
http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

It's 5 minutes to midnight.


tick tick tick ...

[Nederland]

23. I admit to having a hard time...

...reconciling what Al Gore says and what the IPCC says.

[OKIsItJustMe]

25. I don't know what (in particular) you're having a hard time reconciling

However, I'll take a stab at it.

The IPCC gives a consensus opinion, based on well accepted science. Their 2007 opinions were based on nothing more recent than 2005. Picture a bunch of people arguing in a room, some are on one side, some on the other, most are somewhere between the extremes. A mediator says, "OK, what can we agree on!?" They hammer something out.

Then, the politicians come in and question their conclusions. Here's their diagram of the process.

There are lots of "checks and balances." Their reports are conservative (nothing too radical can survive the review process.) When the IPCC says something, it means, "This much we're absolutely certain of!" Think of the IPCC report as a "baseline."


Al Gore is one man, who forms his opinions, based (in some cases) on more recent facts and theories. Picture one guy, poring over the latest studies and talking to the researchers. (Take his statements as, "There's good evidence that this is true.")

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. A practical illustration

Since this thread seems to have dealt a fair deal with sea level rise, check out this article on "The IPCC sea level numbers."
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=427

[Nederland]

36. Yes, I was referring to sea level rise

The IPCC numbers regarding sea level rise seem to be much more optimistic than Al Gore's.

[OKIsItJustMe]

38. Well, yes and no

There's little doubt how much sea level will rise if Greenland and Antarctica melt. The question is the rapidity with which they will melt.

Well, as it turns out, they're melting faster than the IPCC report said they would:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/grace-20070320.html

Gravity Measurements Help Melt Ice Mysteries 03.23.07

…

Just a few years ago, the world's climate scientists predicted that Greenland wouldn't have much impact at all on sea level in the coming decades. But recent measurements show that Greenland's ice cap is melting much faster than expected.

…

"We have to pay attention," Velicogna adds. "These ice sheets are changing much faster than we were expecting. Observations are the most powerful tool we have to know what is going on, especially when the changes - and what's causing them - are not obvious."

This is one reason why there's a sort of "running gag" on this board of "Faster than expected."

(How'd I do?)

[bananas]

30. Could you be more specific?

What's to reconcile?
I don't think the IPCC ever said global warming was more serious than nuclear war.

In "An open letter from David Suzuki" dated February 20, 2008, David Suzuki writes:

In 1988, participants at a major conference of atmosphere scientists in Toronto were so alarmed by the evidence that global warming was happening that they signed a news release calling global warming a threat to human survival second only to nuclear war

www.davidsuzuki.org/latestnews/dsfnews02200801.asp

Al Gore has been consistent:

In 1991, Al Gore (US Vice President from 1993–2000) described the threat of climate change to humanity as ‘second only to nuclear war’.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-climate_change_debate/article_924.jsp

Greenpeace:

Over the longer term, Greenpeace activist Jeremy Leggett
warns, the full consequences of global warming would be second only to nuclear war.
(Leggett, 1993: 44)

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:QDByBD4Sbj0J:www.gechs.org/downloads/holmen/Kane.pdf+ipcc+%22second+only+to+nuclear+war%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us

Stephen Hawking:

Thursday, 18 January 2007

Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said.

Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it.

He was speaking at the Royal Society in London yesterday at a conference organised by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which has decided to move the minute hand of its "Doomsday Clock" forward to five minutes to midnight to reflect the increased dangers faced by the world.

<snip>

"As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change, scientists have a special responsibility, once again, to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces," Professor Hawking said. "As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth.

<snip>

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/hawking-warns-we-must-recognise-the-catastrophic-dangers-of-climate-change-432585.html

[Nederland]

37. No, it's the other way around

I think the IPCC is much more optimistic than Al Gore regarding climate change.

[bananas]

41. Nuclear war is worse than either optimistic or pessimistic global warming