The problem with Climate Change …
Most of the Climate Change criticism is based on the fact that CO2 levels were MUCH higher in the past. That is absolutely correct.
And completely misses the point.
Throughout most of the Earth’s history, carbon dioxide levels have generally changed very slowly. That gave organisms and their ecosystems sufficient time to adapt to climate change through both evolution and migration.
Most of the change from 280 ppm to 421 in 2022 happened in less than 200 years. The present atmospheric concentration of CO2 is the highest for 14 million years.
To put that into context: 14 Million years is longer than it took for apes and humans to evolve from monkeys. Do you think humans would have been able to evolve in just 200 years?
To put the problem into an easily understood picture:
Imagine I throw a tiny lead ball at you. Are you afraid?
Now imagine I use a gun to shoot that lead ball at you - THAT is Climate Change.
If you understand the difference SPEED makes, then you start to understand the threat that climate change is.
Many plants and animals are unable to cope with the rapid change - we are already knee deep in a mass extinction that rivals the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Many of us can see that for themselves. When I was a kid windscreens used to be splattered with insects, and every 100 km you had to stop at a petrol station to clean the windows.
But not anymore.
Insect numbers have plummeted by up to 96% in places - not only in industrialised nations but even in “untouched” areas like the Costa Rican rain forest. The importance and effect of pollinators disappearing should not be under-estimated.
The biggest effects of global heating are currently felt at the BOTTOM of the food pyramid (eg the take up of CO2 into the oceans leads to acidification that makes building skeletons from dissolved Calcium carbonate near impossible), and the effects will not propagate gradually and slowly up the chain but suddenly and catastrophically when you reached the tipping point.
Because the ability of the ecosystems to compensate is being steadily eroded (from multiple sides, eg pollution, exploitation, etc), and while it takes a few hundred years for the changes to reach a tipping point, when it tips EVERYTHING depending on it tips too.
Most plants and animals will come up with new varieties that might be able to cope better - but that doesn’t prevent a population collapse, it just means the species might be able to rebuild and still be around in a few thousand years.
But for many species this will not be enough - because as a population they depend on a plentiful supply of other species for food.
The food we eat is produced in dirt that developed into fertile soil over sometimes tens of thousands of years. Alluvial plains for example. The most productive areas are coastal areas. Which is a small percentage of land area. Where do you get your food when these areas become too dry / wet / hot / cold / unstable / submerged for agriculture?
So the question for most humans will be: “Would you mind not eating for a few thousand years?"
Will Humans survive?
Humans - yes.
Humanity - doubtful.
Because it is just a question of WHEN, not IF, the human population will collapse like the environment they depend on around them.
And you can have faith that humans will react to the problem like this:
Here's Thursday's thinker!
I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?
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Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.
Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.
I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.
More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).
Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.
I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).
Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).
Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).
Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.
Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?
When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.
What do you think?
See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...
Also see:
aaamazingphoenix.wordpress.com...
Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?
Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱
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48.3% Yes
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49.7% No
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1.9% Other - I'll share below
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