Global Warming Will “Wipe Out Billions”

This is not a parody. I swear this is not a parody. From the NEWS.scotsman.com; date November 30, 2009 (post-ClimateGate):

Warming will ‘wipe out billions’
MOST of the world’s population will be wiped out if political leaders fail to agree a method of stopping current rates of global warming, one of the UK’s most senior climate scientists has warned.
Professor Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, believes only around 10 per cent of the planet’s population — around half a billion people — will survive if global temperatures rise by 4C.

I’m speechless. I’m really trying to think of something to say.

Anderson’s warning comes just eight days before global leaders meet in Copenhagen for the most crucial talks on climate change reversal since the Rio summit in 1992. Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years — in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared — has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century.
Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were “terrifying.”

No. Global warming panic creep applies here. Survival of only 5% of the population would be “terrifying.” Survival of only 10% would be merely “frightening.”

“For humanity it’s a matter of life or death,” he said. “We will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive.

It seems to me that right now the safest place in the world is as far away as possible from Dr. Anderson.

“But I think it’s extremely unlikely that we wouldn’t have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving.”

Why half a billion survivors at 4C, 5C, or 6C? Why not three quarters of a billion? I want see the raw data. It wasn’t deleted, was it?

Efforts at the Copenhagen summit, which starts on 7 December, will focus on action to instead keep temperature rises to no more than 2C — generally accepted as the threshold for dangerous climate change. However, with growing pessimism that a binding agreement on emissions reduction targets will be reached, Anderson warned time was running out.
If ambitious global targets for reductions have not been set by the end of next year, he believes it will be too late to stop emissions rising beyond 2C.

End of next fiscal year or end of next calender year? It matters.

Last week, Britain and France urged the wealthiest nations to set aside $10 billion annually over the next three years to help poorer countries reduce the output of greenhouse gases.

“Hey Ma, that gringo gave 100,000 pesos to hold my breath!”

Scotland has set a 42 per cent emissions reduction target for 2020 but Anderson pointed out that even if this was achieved by rich nations throughout the world, it would only give a 60 per cent chance of avoiding a 2C global temperature increase.

Is it linear? Does that mean that there is a 120 percent chance of avoiding a 1C global temperature increase?

Despite pessimism over the past few weeks he was optimistic a legal agreement can still be reached at Copenhagen. He believes leaders are deliberately trying to lower expectations to increase the impact of any success at the summit.

“Our climate-delegate private jets emitted 12,000 tons of CO2. But the global temperature didn’t change. So the agreement was a success! Did you forget to say thank you?”

“The worst possible result at Copenhagen is a bad deal where the world leaders have to come home and say it’s a good deal when its rubbish,” he added.
“That’s the real danger–that they will feel under pressure to sign up to anything. That could lock us into something bad for the next ten years.”

“Something bad”: spend 20 trillion dollars on carbon reduction, and the world survives.
“Something good”: spend 100 trillion dollars on carbon reduction, and the world survives.
“Something better”: delegates go to Copenhagen, skip the summit, spend 100 bucks on the hookers, and the world survives.

Stewart Stevenson, Scotland’s climate change minister, who will also be attending the summit, said: “Even quite moderate predictions do suggest that we will have vast movements of people around the world particularly on the borders of desert regions and that associated with that will be loss of life.

Yes, but there will be fewer fatal polar bear attacks.
The real tragedy is that we’re spending billions of dollars on global warming research when there’s such a huge unmet need for research on florid mental illness.

Michael Egnor

Senior Fellow, Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

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