Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reaches Record Levels, Scientists Say

[traininthedistance]

Honestly, at this point, all we can do is invest in our own infrastructure and help developing nations develop reasonable and balanced plans. Climate change is going to happen, it is already happening, and now we just need to deal with it. We need to fight the new battle, not pretend we're still fighting the old battle which we already lost.

Speaking as the resident of a city who has had to spend billions fixing flood damage to houses and subways and such after Sandy, thanks a whole hell of a lot for the vote of confidence in our future.  Really appreciate it.

Disturbing stuff. We are at the point where we need to actually need to reclaim atmospheric carbon (but in a less moronic way that iron fertilisation).

US emissions are at a low, and dropping, it's the developing nations that are reaching record highs.

A broad trend, but not always true - they went up 2.9% last year as the article states.

Even if developing countries are producing more fossil fuels, that still shouldn't be used as an excuse for not doing anything about the problem (which a disturbing amount of people I speak to seem to believe).

Ooo, careful, pointing that out is gonna get you labeled a racist by some folks.  If you want to stop global warming, clearly you hate poor brown people and are trying to keep them down with your hipster elitism.

Never mind, of course, that in the USA, minorities are more concerned about global warming, even when you control for partisanship, and of course the countries that are gonna get hit the worst are also the poorest:



Never mind all that.  Obviously caring about the climate must just be a luxury for rich white people.

[traininthedistance]

Honestly, at this point, all we can do is invest in our own infrastructure and help developing nations develop reasonable and balanced plans. Climate change is going to happen, it is already happening, and now we just need to deal with it. We need to fight the new battle, not pretend we're still fighting the old battle which we already lost.

Speaking as the resident of a city who has had to spend billions fixing flood damage to houses and subways and such after Sandy, thanks a whole hell of a lot for the vote of confidence in our future.  Really appreciate it.

Why do you believe that Sandy was caused by climate change? Has there been any upward trend in hurricane activity in recent times?

Whether it was caused by climate change or not*, the destruction it wrought is but a preview of what we'll be in for regularly in a warming world of higher sea levels, more flooding, more storms, etc.  At a certain point, if you're on the coast you're gonna get inundated even in the absence of once-in-a-decade events.  And, yeah, there has been a marked increase in destructive storms, hurricane or otherwise- a lot of areas that were "500-year flood areas" re getting soaked once every couple years these days, which is a good indication what's up.

*Obviously you can't proximately pin any one storm on AGW- but if you pan back and take the proper statistical view, you can say that there will be more, and more harmful, storms. So yeah.  I'm not going to necessarily pin all of Sandy's destruction on global warming, but I can and will use it as a wake-up call.

[traininthedistance]

Honestly, at this point, all we can do is invest in our own infrastructure and help developing nations develop reasonable and balanced plans. Climate change is going to happen, it is already happening, and now we just need to deal with it. We need to fight the new battle, not pretend we're still fighting the old battle which we already lost.

Speaking as the resident of a city who has had to spend billions fixing flood damage to houses and subways and such after Sandy, thanks a whole hell of a lot for the vote of confidence in our future.  Really appreciate it.

Why do you believe that Sandy was caused by climate change? Has there been any upward trend in hurricane activity in recent times?

Whether it was caused by climate change or not*, the destruction it wrought is but a preview of what we'll be in for regularly in a warming world of higher sea levels, more flooding, more storms, etc.

*Obviously you can't proximately pin any one storm on AGW- but if you pan back and take the proper statistical view, you can say that there will be more, and more harmful, storms. So yeah.  I'm not going to necessarily pin all of Sandy's destruction on global warming, but I can and will use it as a wake-up call.

What do you mean "the proper statistical view?" If you go back and look at the statistical record, is there are a correlation between rising sea levels and increased hurricane activity (I'm genuinely asking; I don't know if there has been)? Sea levels have been on the rise for over a century, so I'm sure there's some of data on this.

What I mean by "the proper statistical view" is to not just say "you can't prove that Hurricane X was specifically caused by a warming world, therefore warming isn't a problem!" when, over the course of, say, a couple decades or so, the damage caused by storms is higher in aggregate because they're more likely to form/stronger and more devastating to life and property when they do form on average.

Also, "correlation between rising sea levels and increased hurricane activity" isn't the right question to ask, either- one should be drawing the lines between increased global temperatures and rising sea levels; as well as increased global temperatures and storm damage, because that's where the actual causation is coming from.

Anyway, it's actually unsure whether we'll have more hurricanes in a warm world.  But, the damage that each of them do will be worse and worse, because a) warmer waters can lead to more intense hurricanes, and b) because rising sea levels will make the storm surges that much worse (in addition to inundating some particularly fragile areas even in the absence of storms, which was part of the point I was trying to make).  So even if we have the same number, they will be more devastating when they come.  And, just as obviously, hurricanes are not the only kind of extreme weather, and not even the only kind of extreme weather that causes damage primarily through flooding.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/fcons/fcons1.asp

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php

[traininthedistance]

Why is Albania so vulnerable in mostly-green Europe? Something unique about the landscape/local climate?

Not entirely sure?  Presumably it's some combination of geography and poverty (as poorer countries are gonna have a harder time spending money to adapt).  I was a little surprised to see Netherlands at merely yellow, seeing as their lands are, well, nether, but I guess they're rich enough that it softens the blow.