The end of the world is nigh!
Jan. 30th, 2006 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueOn the radio this morning was a discussion about carbon emissions and global warming.
The general gist of it was, that the environmental scientists, have now accepted that climate change is now inevitable, and if we can keep our carbon emissions down, we may not hit the 'point of no return'.
The problem is, I can't really see enough people giving up cars, transport, electricity and all the other conveniences of life. Because 'their bit' is a drop in the ocean, and why should they when no one else will.
So basically, we're coming close to crisis point. Oil is running out. Climate change and icecap melting is now a question of 'how bad' not 'whether it'll happen'. Nuclear energy is about our only alternative - despite it's problems it's carbon emissions are low. Unfortunately the time to build a nuclear power plant is actually quite substantial.
So basically, if we can stop churning out carbon dioxide, we might be able to get away with a 2 degree temperature change, and a bit of icemelt, flooding and hurricanes.
Problem is, how do you tell America and China that they really really need to tidy their rooms? We're just about able to convince the rest of the EU that this could be a really big problem, but it looks like that might just be cutting the rest of the world another 10 years.
The details may be found on the BBC website
Oh, and there's a new BOFH episdoe - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/bofh_2006_episdoe_4/
The general gist of it was, that the environmental scientists, have now accepted that climate change is now inevitable, and if we can keep our carbon emissions down, we may not hit the 'point of no return'.
The problem is, I can't really see enough people giving up cars, transport, electricity and all the other conveniences of life. Because 'their bit' is a drop in the ocean, and why should they when no one else will.
So basically, we're coming close to crisis point. Oil is running out. Climate change and icecap melting is now a question of 'how bad' not 'whether it'll happen'. Nuclear energy is about our only alternative - despite it's problems it's carbon emissions are low. Unfortunately the time to build a nuclear power plant is actually quite substantial.
So basically, if we can stop churning out carbon dioxide, we might be able to get away with a 2 degree temperature change, and a bit of icemelt, flooding and hurricanes.
Problem is, how do you tell America and China that they really really need to tidy their rooms? We're just about able to convince the rest of the EU that this could be a really big problem, but it looks like that might just be cutting the rest of the world another 10 years.
The details may be found on the BBC website
Oh, and there's a new BOFH episdoe - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/27/bofh_2006_episdoe_4/
