if carbon dioxide continues to increase at current rates. Coral reefs, harbouring a quarter of ocean species, are threatened.
– James Hansen
Earth to Jim … corals evolved with CO2 levels 10-20X higher than at present, and temperatures 10C higher than at present. They have survived all the catastrophes nature has thrown at them for the last few hundred million years. If conditions become unfavorable in one location, they can and will migrate.
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher.
75 metres? Someone sounds certifiable to me.
What’s odd about this car/CO2 thing…
The car manufacturers are claiming that more and more cars are on the road.
China and India mostly.
Oil and gas companies are saying that demand is at an all time high…
…yet CO2 levels continue to go up at exactly the same rate
You would think, if we are burning oil and gas at an all time high, that you would see a jump in CO2 levels to coincide with it.
LR, I think you will find both are increasing. But petrol and cars are not the only thing contributing to CO2 concentrations in the air. Photosynthesis and respiration add and subtract CO2 to the atmosphere but they more or less cancel each other out over the period of year. Deforestation and burning of coal are the other two big contibutors to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
I’m not buying the story that the rise has anything to do with our consumption.
What’s truly sad is that MSM continues to report he anything Hansen says as “revelation from the prophet” while making light (or fun) of the “end of the world” claims from the other nut case (Camping ?).
With it -107 in Antarctica, the ice cap will not melt anytime in the near future. Too many low budget disaster movies and too many magic mushrooms have apparently destroyed his mind.
75 meters is definitely a new high on the exaggeration meter.
Let’s just put out a report saying we have recalculated, and it’s over 300 Million meters, so that after the flood, we’ll be able to sail to the moon and live there.
Hey, everyone knows ice expands when it melts! Are you questioning me?
We’ll conveniently ignore the Roche limit, elliptical orbits, and every other law of physics. Why get too technical? This is CLIMATE science!
I think Jimmy (Hansen) would be on board with that. The Guardian will publish it. They may even beat The Globe and The Star to the story.
Earth to the astrophysicist – corals are more resilient than you previously thought.
“Doom and Boom on a Resilient Reef: Climate Change, Algal Overgrowth and Coral Recovery”
Here’s some more:
Unusually cold water also kills corals.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2486.1996.tb00063.x/abstract
He will have to burn up a lot of doobies to get sea levels that high.