 Poster: A snowHead
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| pavlf wrote: |
| We are are currently undergoing a mass extinction caused entirely by human beings. If we continue as we are, it's not just that it's going to get warmer and you can have nice summer holidays, every system on earth is going to go into collapse. If we don't do something most mammalian life will not be able to survive. |
Lol.
Sounds like attention-seeking hysteria.
The worldwide human population today is bigger, healthier, and longer-living than at any time in human history.
The UN predicts the worldwide human population tomorrow will get bigger, healthier, and longer-living for the rest of this century.
There is no threat to mankind.
All that will happen is we'll just turnup the aircon a bit in summer and everyone will get a cool suntan.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Attention seeking? Moi?
Are you saying I mentioned the widely documented mass extinction because I'm hysterical and so that I could draw attention to myself via an anonymous account on a rather esoteric online forum?
There is a threat. The first threat is going to be to the food supply. Then there will be threat with regards to land where people want to live. We are already into a new phase of resource wars.
I suspect though that your post is part man, part troll, part contrarian, part joke. Who knows.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| pavlf wrote: |
| There is a threat. The first threat is going to be to the food supply. Then there will be threat with regards to land where people want to live. We are already into a new phase of resource wars. |
Give it a rest.
Global food supply today sits at record levels.
The world has a +30% food surplus in 2024.
We've never ever had so much food and drink.
Global deaths from famine have collapsed -99% and disappeared.
Global deaths from wars have plunged -70% since the 1970s.
Global average life expectancy has soared from 35 years in 1900 to 65 in 2000 and a forecasted 85 by 2100.
The facts are overwhelming.
The human race is healthier and bigger than ever before.
And all the main global agencies, from the UN to the OECD, forecast the good times to continue.
Every century has its hysteria.
The Ancient Greeks said the serpents would eat them and everyone would die.
The 1800s said they were gonna run out of food and everyone would die.
The 1900s said they were gonna runout of oil and everyone would die.
The 2000s say we're all gonna fry and drown and everyone will die.
Hysteria and panic is as old as the hills.
The human race is in great shape.
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You forgot more CO2 = more green.
I really don't understand this climate change hysteria... plants need CO2 to separate the C from the O2 so we, humans, can live.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I am neither hysterical nor panicking. In the 1800s and the 1900s a lot of people did run out of food. Because we didn't have a nuclear war in the 1980s doesn't mean we aren't going to have a nuclear war you know!
I don't imagine the collapse of the human race is round the next corner. However, if you think the next fifty years are going to be underpinned by increasing good fortune for humans I want to hang around where you live. I admire your optimism and belief that things can only get better and keep on getting better and get better and better without end! We can keep on extracting and burning and it will all keep going! Forever. Better and better and better. The enlightenment myth of progress is clearly very strong here. Things may now be at the point of being as good as they get. The whole point here is that things could get an awful lot worse. Either we do something or we don't. Things won't just get better and better by themselves.
Give it a rest? Isn't this the thread discussing the issues caused by climate change? I think the issues surrounding the food supply IN THE FUTURE (most of our people have never had it so good, indeed!) are entirely pertinent to the topic. That future isn't very far away. I linked a few articles outlining what is a real problem. I'm not inventing it.
Hysterical and panic are the kinds of words people use to belittle other people's points. Why stoop to that level? You could easily have made your points without being a d**k I would have thought? But no perhaps not. Cheers, I've been entirely charmed by the conversation. I'm leaving now. I'm sure that will come as no great loss to many of you.
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| pavlf wrote: |
I am neither hysterical nor panicking. In the 1800s and the 1900s a lot of people did run out of food. Because we didn't have a nuclear war in the 1980s doesn't mean we aren't going to have a nuclear war you know!
I don't imagine the collapse of the human race is round the next corner. However, if you think the next fifty years are going to be underpinned by increasing good fortune for humans I want to hang around where you live. I admire your optimism and belief that things can only get better and keep on getting better and get better and better without end! We can keep on extracting and burning and it will all keep going! Forever. Better and better and better. The enlightenment myth of progress is clearly very strong here. Things may now be at the point of being as good as they get. The whole point here is that things could get an awful lot worse. Either we do something or we don't. Things won't just get better and better by themselves.
Give it a rest? Isn't this the thread discussing the issues caused by climate change? I think the issues surrounding the food supply IN THE FUTURE (most of our people have never had it so good, indeed!) are entirely pertinent to the topic. That future isn't very far away. I linked a few articles outlining what is a real problem. I'm not inventing it.
Hysterical and panic are the kinds of words people use to belittle other people's points. Why stoop to that level? You could easily have made your points without being a d**k I would have thought? But no perhaps not. Cheers, I've been entirely charmed by the conversation. I'm leaving now. I'm sure that will come as no great loss to many of you. |
Pavlf.....putting the "I" into climate change 
Shut the door on your way out.
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| nunex wrote: |
You forgot more CO2 = more green.
I really don't understand this climate change hysteria... plants need CO2 to separate the C from the O2 so we, humans, can live. |
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Wow. Such nice people here on snowheads. I think some of you could move to another 'heads' site. It's quite frustrating how nasty people get in discussions about what we are doing to the planet. I was thinking not to respond, but that response is so unpleasant I'm not letting it go. Perhaps I was really unpleasant to start with? Well, if so I apologise, but to stick with 'me', I think it's too important a topic to end up being abusive. If you want to be abusive we can arrange to meet up and do it in person.
Can you point out where the articles I posted explaining the impact of glacial loss on global food supplies are going wrong? I didn't write them. They weren't about me.
Could whitegold explain how the period of unprecedented prosperity through which we have all unarguably been living is going to sustain itself as we move further up the escalator of increasing temperatures? If you think it's bad this year, wait till next year and then the one after. Imagine what things will be like in ten years. This isn't going to be a slow and steady ride as it gently gets warmer. It's going to be very rough. It's not me saying this, it's almost every climate scientist on earth. Most people here have noticed how quickly things have been changing over the last few years. This isn't going to stop next year or the one after. And it's not going to stay like this either. it's going to get warmer. Could whitegold find the articles that explain how we will manage with temperatures that move above the 1.5 Paris agreement (which everyone knows we are going to go beyond). I think there's pretty wide agreement - nothing to do with me - that societies are going to have trouble at much beyond 1.5.
This isn't about me. To suggest it is seems to me a sign of some weakness in your own position. Being wrong is being wrong, it's not shameful. But some people seem to fear the shame of being wrong to the extent that they will do anything to show other people are wrong regardless of any truth. I'd love to be wrong about this. I lay awake hoping I'm wrong. Probably this will be something for ski3 to jump on and gloat over. Who can say?
Fortunately this is just an online forum. This isn't about me. It's about the kind of world we hope to live in and the kind of world the next people will be living in thanks to us.
The loss of glacial ice is one part of a very large problem.
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Statistics show that globally last year was the warmest on Record (records back to 1940). It was 1.48c warmer then the long-term average, so remarkably warm. 2023 included a streak of over 200 days from June Onwards with new daily global climate records, meaning that over 200 days were recorded as the warmest ever for those days in the 80+ years of global records. 200+ record warm days in 1 year!
Anyone who questions the existence of climate change and the impact of mans activities on the climate is simply ignoring the facts!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@pavlf, "I'd love to be wrong about this." - I share this sentiment. A lot of people seem to think people concerned about climate change are trying to make their life difficult or to be deliberately negative. But we are just basing on what the majority of scientists/experts are telling us. If someone wants to challenge that then fine but lets keep it civil.
Ignore Whitegold, he/she is either a fruit cake and/or wind up merchant. You won't have a sensible conversation with them.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It's not the kind of being right you want to be right about, or the kind you feel good about is it.
And yes, disagree, good, but it has to be civil. I may well have gone into a bit of hyperbole, but that can be pointed out in a reasonable way I should think. We can have another slag people off you know nothing about thread somewhere else. Reddit probably.
Whitegold, yes I've seen the contrarian posts and noted the occasionally peculiar gloating tone.
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| pavlf wrote: |
| I think some of you could move to another 'heads' site. |
Petrol? Smack? Dick?
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You know it makes sense.
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| shannyla wrote: |
I am on the "not convinced" wing of the climate change debate, but only through observation and experience rather than politics. The politics on both sides of that debate are utterly toxic, from an almost religious denial of the scientific method on the believer side to a General Melchett-style total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face on the denier side.
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Clearly you haven't done enough research then. I was skeptical in 1995 but by 2000 it was pretty obvious what was happening. The long carbon cycle has been disrupted by human activity. It's so obvious what's happening that I do think you have to be a bit thick to remain skeptical.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I think William MacAskill sums it up very well in his recent book 'What we owe the future':
"Climate change sceptics point to our uncertainty as a reason for inaction...But this is a terrible argument...Uncertainty cuts both ways...The damage caused by climate change might be less than forecasted, but it might also be considerably worse...Greater uncertainty should prompt more concern about worse-case outcomes...It's as if my teenage self , before jumping off a building, had reassured onlookers by saying, "It's OK, I've no idea how far I'll fall.""
Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Mon 29-01-24 16:00; edited 1 time in total
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Poster: A snowHead
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Is anyone in any doubt, following this year's January heatwave, which comes after last year's January heatwave, that the climate is changing quite dramatically. The ironic thing about it is that as skiing in the Alps becomes less snow-sure people are already wondering about travelling to other destinations for their downhill activities. I can't imagine coach tours to Norway and northern Sweden are about to take off, so I guess that entails lots of people taking flights of on average another 1000 miles further than current trips to the Alps (for those who choose to fly everywhere and you'd have to because not many people will travel overland from the UK to Åre, it's only 27 hours by car from Calais).
Anthropogenic Global Warming will mean an end to skiing, for most people at any rate, either because there's no snow or because getting to places with snow will further exacerbate the effects of the warming - as indeed it already does. It doesn't mean an end in my lifetime. I'll only see a reduction, but my children will see the end.
My understanding of the situation - and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - is that the climate is back-loaded. Today we are experiencing the heating put into the system twenty and more years ago, and given we increased the burning of fossil fuels since then we can look forward to increased warming in the future. Even if we stopped emitting C02 entirely today the climate would carry on warming for another quarter of a century or so. The warming in the system will already take us beyond the optimistic 1.5 Paris agreement. This means that we are now in the good old days of snow. Twenty years down the line this season will look like a good season. Today 2000 meters is the new 1300. By then 2500 or even 3000 will be the new 2000.
Those of us who've been going to the Alps for fifty and more years will recognise a feeling of 'solastaliga' when comparing the Alps of today with those of the 70s and 80s, but I think many of us will also recognise feelings of ecological grief when confronted with the terrifying speed of glacial loss, alongside the obvious eco-anxiety I'm sure most people feel over their holidays.
I know this sounds grim, but it does look like the reality. Can someone please prove me wrong without being abusive?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| pavlf wrote: |
My understanding of the situation - and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - is that the climate is back-loaded. |
Yes, it is like the Titanic. By the time you spot the iceberg it is too late to avoid it.
The other issue is not of no snow but of very erratic snow and more extremes. Already we have had two bad winters; this is killing some of the more vulnerable ski areas and even if snows return the lifts may not reopen.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Climate change is a delayed positive feedback loop. Eventually it reaches runaway. It reinforces itself larger the longer we pump more and more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere the worse it will be. It’s to do with the way oceans absorb the extra thermal energy in the atmosphere, feeding it back over a long time frame simply because the oceans are so large it takes a long time to raise the global ocean temperature. Last year in French news they were saying the Med was 3*c warmer than average, that will have an effect on the local climate and weather patterns, el nino aside.
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@davidof, yes, not no snow, erratic as you say and also perhaps huge volumes at altitude as this year, and none lower down.
The exponential effects of warming are really the most worrying thing though, and, as @Extremophile, says, the warming of the Atlantic last summer may prove to have been more consequential than many people realised. For years I've been hoping that perhaps it wasn't as bad as predicted, but at this stage it seems it probably is
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@pavlf, I'd agree, it's definitely looking that way.
It's probably time to create a new forum called "rainheads" for the people that don't kick off when making valid observations like you've done.
We can then leave the "snowheads" to make excuse after excuse every season about the miserable snow conditions and high temperatures we now get for most of the season.
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@Pyramus, rainheads hahaha
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Has anyone seen the BBC program..."Big oil vs the world"?
To summarise they knew about global warming back in the 80s because they did huge amounts of research into it even then, but put profit over planet. They had a business plan to discredit anyone that in anyway got in the way of their profits and basically bribe politicians against any form of legislation that would reduce their income.
Very interesting, but scary documentary.
Just saying.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| pavlf wrote: |
| I know this sounds grim, but it does look like the reality. Can someone please prove me wrong without being abusive? |
We haven't been nothing for 20 years. We might not have been doing enough (debatable, hard to quantify - so no definitive answer). Yes, there is a lag. Yes, some effect is already showing itself and will continue to do so. However, to coin that awful phrase, every little helps. I wouldn't say I was an optimist or a fatalist. What we have to do is keep looking at the data, keep working on solutions, keep trying to hold governments to account, keep to trying to understand, manage and mitigate the effects. There aren't absolutes for me.
If I look at my own personal situation for example. I have done/am doing quite a lot. But some things are very difficult. For example my heating engineer was here earlier - our water cylinder is rusting and needs replacing. And we had a discussion about the life of our boiler and switching to a heat pump. First of all the boiler has plenty of life left it in it. Second the cylinder we need for a gas boiler would be less efficient for a heat pump and third, the pipework radiators are not efficient for a gas boiler. So flipping from gas to heat pump would entail effectively replumbing the whole house. There are thousands of decisions like this on a micro and macro scale.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
| We can then leave the "snowheads" to make excuse after excuse every season about the miserable snow conditions and high temperatures we now get for most of the season. |
Like in general society there are a few deniers and fatalists on SH's but there are plenty of others who are very cognisant of the situation and not out to "make excuses".
Equally, we/I don't want to bring climate change into every conversation and there is still a large element of "weather" going on.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Layne, Have you thought about solar panels & battery set up with an immersion heater in a storage tank. This then pumps around your existing rad circuit and charges your HW tank. No heat pump required.
I've thought about this for ages and can't see why it shouldn't work.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@gixxerniknik, we discussed it with him but he says better to use solar panels to generate electricity for other uses. In his words the water heating is on average only 20% of an households electricity use.
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@gixxerniknik, in our house we quite like avoiding turning heat into electricity and then into heat. We have solar water panels which give us (sort of) free hot water from April to October.
(Yes yes, I know we had to buy the panels, and the heat comes from light, and the light is not reflected back into space but turned into heat, and the glycol in the system has an environmental impact etc etc).
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You know it makes sense.
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@valais2, I didn't know about Chris Turney, no, so thanks very much for that.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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We have solar panels and a little gizmo that diverts any electricity we aren't using into the immersion heater - this year we used 1 unit of gas between March and October - probably when we did a big stir fry (we have a wok burner, but use the induction hob most of the time) - had to explain this to Octopus as they didn't believe we had read the meter correctly.
I'm old enough to remember when most resorts didn't have snow making and did have snow. Last few years I've not committed to ski holiday until a week or two before, or if I have then the accomodation and ski hire have been on "free cancellation" so that we could go higher if need be - this year we've prebooked Morillon for early March and it can't be changed - starting to think that was a bad decision! It'll be a very expensive "sitting around reading" holiday if there isn't some snow soon.
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Poster: A snowHead
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@pavlf, of his books, the very far sighted 'Ice mud and blood' is worth starting with - outlines the methods of paleo-climatology. And is bloody scary about feedback loops.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| pavlf wrote: |
| @Pyramus, rainheads hahaha |
pissindownheads
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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News in France today is that there’s a wild fire in the forests of the pyrenees… in January. It was only a few days ago they were reporting the it’s looking like a permanent drought in the area as there’s been hardly any rain in that part over the last few years. The weather on the south coast has been well in to the 20’s sometimes over 25*c these last few days/couple of weeks… in January. None of these things is normal.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@skimummk, I love the sound of your gizmo. Do you have a battery too to store the solar made electricity or just the gizmo?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Extremophile, extraordinary. Must look at the news on this.
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Lots of interesting views on this thread already. I'm in the camp of having skied in Europe since I was a kid the early 80s, and while I wanted really wanted climate change to be tree-hugger scaremongering throughout my teenaged years the 90s, it just cannot be denied. From a combination of scientific data and analysis, as well as my own personal experiences over the last 20-25 years, I'd be burying my head in the sand to think that temps are doing anything other than rising at an alarming rate.
I'm late 40s now and have a real sense of nostalgia about annual ski holidays in Jan/Feb when I was school age. I had hoped to ski well into my late 60s and beyond, but I really can't see that being an option in 20 years time. I count myself lucky to have had loads of amazing times on the snow, but it's genuinley sad for younger generations.
Even though I can't go skiing this year, I've still been following the weather outlook thread since the autumn in the hope that we'd get a great season just for the benefit of everyone that is going and all the businesses in resorts that rely on a 4 month season.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Strongest El Nino since 98-99
We all know that 99 was record year for avalanches & poo-poo.
You cant compare year to year, or decade to decade. The cycles are well beyond man invented passages of time - we now use 10’s, wasnt long ago when we used 8s.
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FAQ
