Can it stilll be reversed or are we in the advent of the doomsday?

Question

Forget Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", as Nat Geo surely is apolitical. But just the same, when glaciers a million years old or so, fall and melt into the ocean at a pace of 15 kilometers per year, well, it's something very disturbing...very alarming. Also there are already watery pockets in the polar ice caps. I think we're in the last days of the human race. Am not being a pessimist. Just a realist. Not much was made to reverse it. We're too late, aren't we? (And no, am no doomsday prophet....just another guy who notices not much was done to reverse the effects of global warming).

Answer 1

learn to live today like it can be your last.everything else will work out for the good,accordingly as planned..realitivity;everything is going from disorder to order"...

Answer 2

IPCC predictions are 24in (60cm) sea rise over the next 100 years, they have hinted this might be an under estimate but even their high end prediction of a 1m isn't, end of the world stuff, economically probably very bad, but that might be a good thing it might change one of the current attitudes that we can’t do anything about global warming because it might affect some jobs! Or the other silly one that it couldn’t possibly be us because the Earth is to big for us to effect, it might finally wake some up and realize that the Earth isn’t that big and given enough time we can affect it.

Answer 3

There are many years yet, before most experts say we are on our way to doomsday. But, some have listed "tipping points" and if any of them are reached, we are doomed, inevitably.

But, we are more than 50 years away from that, some say, and they could be right.

One tipping point: The bottom of the oceans include gigatons of solid methane formed ages ago. This gas is ten times worse than Carbon Dioxide (CO2) at producing the "Greenhouse" effect on the earth (they "trap" the heat in the atmosphere like a Greenhouse traps heat to grow plants.).

Only the most pessimist says we will reach the "point of no return" before the end of the century.

But, keep in mind that in the US, with all the schools and politicians preaching about Global Warming, only about half of all Americans think it is a serious problem.

Now, consider all the natives living in all the rain-forests that have not even heard the term "Global Warming"!  Yet, the rain-forest is Key to the only known process to remove CO2 from the air.

The Oceans are now saturated with CO2 and will absorb no more and the soil in most of the world releases more CO2 than it stores due to burning and the natives living there still continue burning all forests down, oblivious to consequences. They know nothing of GW and they need to burn the forests to survive.

Answer 4

During the medieval warm period and the little ice age glaciers shrunk and expanded at rates at least equal to what we're going through now.. and we somehow managed to live through it.

I wouldn't worry about it.

And I too notice not much was done to reverse the effects of global warming.. because there's nothing we could have done to do it.

Answer 5

Watch the documentary: The great global warming swindle.

If you actually want to be a realist, you should take a look at the other point of view.

Answer 6

Honestly, I think it is too late, but without hope what is there?  Change needs to happen today, right now, this minute, everywhere in the world...sigh, therein lies the rub, but if we don't act now, it will definitely be too late.

Answer 7

There are no "watery pockets" in the polar ice.  It's winter now, it's 40 below there now.  The polar ice is at normal levels, it's just thicker this year than normal.

Glaciers that once covered New York City were seven miles thick.  These glaciers have been in recession for thousands of years.  What makes to think they should stop now?  Why do you think man is the cause?

Answer 8

Clearly warming has already happened and because CO2 remains in the atmosphere for 100+ years it will continue to warm in the foreseeable future.  But that doesn't mean the last days of the human race.  We'll have to adapt and mitigate, but a little intelligence (I know, that's not always present in human endeavors) can go a long way to help in that.

Given the level of international attention the subject is gaining, and given that the next US president will almost surely do more than the current one, we should see emission levels start to flatten out and possible turn down in the next 50 years.  While that won't stop the warming, it will lesson it.

We'll still have enormously expensive measure necessary for coastal cities.  But there's a lot of higher ground still inhabitable.