GeniB

As if we haven't enough to worry about what with Brexit , Trump and the despicable removal of The British Bake Off programme . Apparently we now have the UN's word that we will be living in a sand dune

This portent of doom came from the journal SCIENCE? (anyone ? feel free to step up if this is on your breakfast table ) and made the headlines in the Portugal News .The disconcerting thing is.. It warned about Lisbon? It being in southern Portugal of course. Now if they got this small fact wrong? You see where I am going?

It goes along with my puzzlement with the fact that the Canadian Arctic expedition to find the Franklin ships (sailing ships searching for the North West passage in the early 1800's disappeared without trace) in 2014. Got stuck in thick ice far further south than had been recorded before .Ice that didn't melt in the summer as normal. In fact the exact same conditions that the sailing ships had got caught in over a hundred yrs before them.

It certainly makes you think

macliam

But Lisbon IS Southern Portugal, take a look at the map - in fact it's further south than a fair part of the Alentejo! Suggesting that Portugal could become a desert is surfing behind the wave...... go to see the area around Mértola at the end of a dry Summer! In fact come to see us around Ourique, just north of the Algarve. On Friday I was entertaining the bombeiros dealing with a stubble fire that came within 5 metres of the house (it melted my garden irrigation pipes) - and even after two periods of intensive rain, my barragem is still only one third full (yet it overflowed in March!). It wouldn't take much to tip us over the edge......

liveaboard

The ice is melting, the sea is warming, the water will expand and inundate much of the low lying land currently occupied by humans.
There will be much suffering, and future generations will curse us for this.

Of course, if you believe 95% of the planet's scientists are lying about it, then I don't have much to add.

hottoddy

Well yes indeed but global sea-level rise i fear will be the least of mankind's forthcoming problems related to climate change even though some 440 million people live in low elevation coastal zones.Regarding future generations i think there will be much suffering before 2030.And yes the Worlds scientific community are united regarding climate change apart from a handful of extreme skeptics

Lentisc

Being pedantic, I suppose Lisbon is in the southern half of Portugal.

But I would not worry too much about it anyway, with more of the recent bad storms we have experienced lately, we will be all blown or washed away, long before then.

Also if half of the island in the Grand Canaries (La Palma) ever slips into the sea, then the Algarve beach will probably start just south of Porto anyway.

Chill bro.

GeniB

10 oil companies have agreed to support reducing carbon dioxide emissions ,over a period of 10 yrs they plane to spend 1 billion dollars in the area of climate change

Shell meanwhile plans to spend 29 billion dollars this year on drilling new oil fields.

I guess they are NOT reading Science Magazine.

macliam

The oil & motor companies are desperately trying to put a spoke in Elon Musk's wheels too.... They've come up with a few lumpy hybrids and "all electrics" which are only any use for commuting, whereas he is producing a luxury, high performance, all-electric sports car which actually has usable autonomy - at a high price, of course, but there are no economies of scale as yet. I was lucky enough to try a Tesla last Christmas and was suitably impressed (unfortunately the owner wanted it back though )

But now he's daring to venture into more mass-market territory, suddenly the press is full of investors "concerned" about his decision to take over a huge battery producing plant (designed to reduce the cost of the key component in his motors) and issues with his driver-assist software. How they'll react to his Powerwall battery pack for solar panels and his solar roof tiles, goodness only knows.

Imagine what innovations we'd see if all the motor companies invested in green solutions, instead of just tinkering with ways to spin out the internal combustion engine for a few more decades!

Moses2013

It is worrying and while Portugal is still Ok now, many places are already like hell and people are dying from the heat. Kuwait actually had the hottest day ever this year (54c) and the whole Middle East could become inhabitable soon enough. All these people will have to live somewhere and then you have rising sea levels as liveaboard mentioned.

GeniB

As long as the Oil men have a big say in things it will remain this way. A close friend of my OH 's was working on electric cars in the 1970's at Lucas. A lot of scorn was thrown at them.. Little support of course from the government. Typical British innovation wasted.

Ingles

May be off interest , or not - according to which side off the fence your on !

Sea Levels Could Rise at Fastest Rate in Human History

liveaboard

electric cars are nice, but will not stop global warming; the electricity has to come from somewhere, and so far the bulk is still made by burning fossil fuels. After transmission, charging, and other losses, electric cars aren't helping. They could someday, and I'm all for the new technology, but if you're talking about climate change then electric cars are just more green-wash.
There is only 1 solution that can possibly work in the real world; carbon tax.
Serious, hard core, no holds barred carbon tax. no get out of tax free cards for traditional polluters, everyone pays for all fossil fuel all the time, at one homogonous rate.
Other taxes can be lowered or eliminated to compensate.
With an economy like that, we'll see serious investment in alternative energy. not millions, but billions and trillions.
existing energy business could fold; new players might emerge. or not. anyway, that's enough for rabid opposition to saving the planet
existing trade agreements would have to be scrapped.
No, it's not going to happen.
Oh well, never mind then.

zoff

Yes, Electric Cars Will Reduce Carbon Emissions

"https://www.cars.com/articles/2009/07/yes-electric-cars-will-reduce-carbon-emissions/"

liveaboard

With the American decision to embrace to apocalypse, I think there's nothing more to be done.
I've already bought property with good elevation.
It might be a good idea to start caching food and drinking water.
I'm so glad I have no children. My condolences to the young who will live to experience what's coming.

GeniB

You never expect the Spanish Inquisition Live... lol We're more likely to be hit by a meteor

hottoddy

Even if a person is skeptical regarding mankind's activity driving climate change.? We live on a finite planet with its resources that have mostly been taken for granted.Our biosphere and life within its ecosystems are being pushed to the very limit.Greenhouse gasses carbon CO2ppm and possibly more worrying methane CH4ppb are still climbing at atmospheric concentrations in alarming rates. Many people have argue that past prehistoric climates have been much warmer than today which of course is true.But those ecosystems evolved and flourished over tens, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years rapid climate change always brings mass extinctions.Its difficult to predict the exact path humans are taking due to several reasons but basically our natural systems are all showing signs of change none sadly to say is beneficial for humans and many other life forms that inhabit our planet.Which in someways is rather ironic due to the fact that Earth is the only planet teeming with life within our solar system.My own thoughts regarding our rapidly changing World are focused on freshwater displacement and World crop production