Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

Just re-read the post from Greta Thunberg in 2018. Made overwhelming sense in the context of how CC is affecting Australia.

Also there is one complaint that I ”sound and write like an adult”. And to that I can only say; don’t you think that a 16-year old can speak for herself? There’s also some people who say that I oversimplify things. For example when I say that "the climate crisis is a black and white issue”, ”we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases” and ”I want you to panic”. But that I only say because it’s true. Yes, the climate crisis is the most complex issue that we have ever faced and it’s going to take everything from our part to ”stop it”. But the solution is black and white; we need to stop the emissions of greenhouse gases.

Because either we limit the warming to 1,5 degrees C over pre industrial levels, or we don’t. Either we reach a tipping point where we start a chain reaction with events way beyond human control, or we don’t. Either we go on as a civilization, or we don’t. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival.

The ADF has always been commissioned with preparing for future scenarios. The unfolding situation of a hotter Australia and the consequences re. widespread bushfires was always on the list. However ADF researchers were prohibited to use the world climate change in their analysis. It was politically unacceptable.

They are now coming to terms with the clear impact of increasing temperatures and the essential role the ADF will play in responding to future extreme bushfire threats.

Key points:​

• Former defence official Cheryl Durrant says politics got in the way of effectively preparing for climate change
• Former defence chief Chris Barrie says the Black Summer fires exposed weaknesses in responding to extreme climate-related events
• Social researcher Rebecca Huntley says federal leadership has an enormous influence in shaping the community's perception of a complex issue like climate change

Consequences of rise in flooding events in Australia.

• More than 22,000 claims have been lodged for flood damage so far
• Due to high premiums, many people have opted out of flood insurance
• Premiums have increased 178 per cent in cyclone and flood-prone areas in the past decade

In a La Niña year we still see 2021 in the top ten hottest years ever recorded:


Not looking good for when the reversal takes place,

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What happens when ocean temperatures reach record levels and stay there for months on end ?

More than 80% of the world’s reefs hit by bleaching after worst global event on record​

An ashen pallor and an eerie stillness all that remains where there should fluttering fish and vibrant colours in the reefscape, one conservationist says

Graham Readfearn
Wed 23 Apr 2025 14.00 AEST



The world’s coral reefs have been pushed into “uncharted territory” by the worst global bleaching event on record that has now hit more than 80% of the planet’s reefs, scientists have warned.
Reefs in at least 82 countries and territories have been exposed to enough heat to turn corals white since the global event started in January 2023, the latest data from the US government’s Coral Reef Watch shows.

Coral reefs are known as the rainforests of the sea because of their high concentration of biodiversity that supports about a third of all marine species and a billion people.
But record high ocean temperatures have spread like an underwater wildfire over corals across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, damaging and killing countless corals.

The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted ... suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour

Click to expand...

Dr Derek Manzello
The 84% of reefs exposed to bleaching-level heat in this ongoing fourth event compares with 68% during the third event, which lasted from 2014 to 2017, 37% in 2010 and 21% in the first event in 1998.

Even reefs considered by scientists to be refuges from the ocean’s rising levels of heat have been bleached, Dr Derek Manzello, the director of Coral Reef Watch, said.

“The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted, including purported thermal refugia like Raja Ampat and the Gulf of Eilat, suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour from coral bleaching and its ramifications,” he said.

What is happening to insects around the world ? What about bird life ? Lizards ? Reptiles ?

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects​

A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides

The age of extinction is supported by

About this content

Tess McClure
Tue 3 Jun 2025 08.00 BST


Daniel Janzen only began watching the insects – truly watching them – when his ribcage was shattered. Nearly half a century ago, the young ecologist had been out documenting fruit crops in a dense stretch of Costa Rican forest when he fell in a ravine, landing on his back. The long lens of his camera punched up through three ribs, snapping the bones into his thorax.
Slowly, he dragged himself out, crawling nearly two miles back to the research hut. There were no immediate neighbours, no good roads, no simple solutions for getting to a hospital.

Selecting a rocking chair on the porch, Janzen used a bedsheet to strap his torso tightly to the frame. For a month, he sat, barely moving, waiting for his bones to knit back together. And he watched.
In front of him was a world seething with life. Every branch of every tree seemed to host its own small metropolis of creatures hunting, flying, crawling, eating. The research facility lay in a patchwork of protected rainforest, dry forest, cloud forest, mangroves and coastline covering an area the size of New York, and astonishingly rich in biodiverse life. Here, the bugs gorged, coating the leaf litter with a thick carpet of droppings.

Light traps have long been used to monitor nocturnal insect numbers. In a photograph of one taken in 1978, about 3,000 species were identified. Photograph: Patrick Greenfield/The Guardian
But the real show was at night: for two hours each evening, the site got power and a 25-watt bulb flickered on above the porch. Out of the forest darkness, a tornado of insects would flock to its glow, spinning and dancing before the light. Lit up, the side of the house would be “absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them”, Janzen says.

[The walls would be] absolutely plastered with moths – tens of thousands of them

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Daniel Janzen
Inspired, he decided to erect a sheet for a light trap with a camera – a common way to document flying insect numbers and diversity. In that first photograph, taken in 1978, the lit-up sheet is so thickly studded with moths that in places the fabric is barely visible, transformed into what looks like densely patterned, crawling wallpaper.

Scientists identified an astonishing 3,000 species from that light trap, and the trajectory of Janzen’s career was transformed, from the study of seeds to a lifetime specialising in the forest’s barely documented populations of caterpillars and moths.

Now 86, Janzen still works in the same research hut in the Guanacaste conservation area, alongside his longtime collaborator, spouse and fellow ecologist, Winnie Hallwachs. But in the forest that surrounds them, something has changed. Trees that once crawled with insects lie uncannily still.

basilio said:

‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects

Click to expand...

Common sense tells me there's probably a lot of issues going on here.

Climate change is one issue (either man made or natural) but also there's others eg the industrial scale intentional wiping out of insects by humans, then there's the unintentional effects of the things we're doing.

As just one random example, there's a house I occasionally walk past that has a bug zapper outside running all night, every night. That thing alone is zapping another insect every few seconds when I've walked past, so even on fairly conservative assumptions that's killing huge numbers. Add that to everything else and we're hunting to extinction before we even consider habitat, climate and so on.

Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK​

Increasing frequency of heatwaves and flooding raises fears over health, infrastructure and how society functions

• Ed Miliband to tell MPs who reject net zero policies they are betraying future generations

Damian Carrington Environment editor
Mon 14 Jul 2025 01.00 EDT


Record-breaking extreme weather is the new norm in the UK, scientists have said, showing that the country is firmly in the grip of the climate crisis.

The hottest days people endure have dramatically increased in frequency and severity, and periods of intense rain have also ramped up, data from hundreds of weather stations shows. Heatwaves and floods leading to deaths and costly damage are of “profound concern” for health, infrastructure and the functioning of society, the scientists said.

The weather records clearly show the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago, the scientists said, as a result of the carbon pollution emitted by burning fossil fuels.

The analysis found that the number of days with temperatures 5C above the average for 1961-1990 had doubled in the last 10 years. For days 8C above average, the number has trebled and for 10C above average it has quadrupled. The UK has also become 8% sunnier in the last decade.

The assessment also reported that rain had become more intense. The number of months where counties receive at least double the average rainfall has risen by 50% in the last 20 years. Much of the additional rain is falling in the months from October to March. That period in 2023-24 was the wettest ever, in records that span back to 1767, and resulted in flooding in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, the West Midlands and elsewhere.



https://www.theguardian.com/environ...iliband-net-zero-betraying-future-generations
The sea level around the UK is rising faster than the global average, the report said, which worsens the impact of coastal flooding.

Six hundred people are believed to have died due to the heatwave that hit England and Wales at the end of June. The soaring temperatures were made 100 times more likely by global heating, the scientists calculated. Two more heatwaves have followed in quick succession.

The government’s preparations to protect people from the escalating impacts of the climate crisis were condemned as “inadequate, piecemeal and disjointed” by official advisers in April.

The situation with the Doomsday Glacier in Antarctica is getting more concerning by the month. Long story short. The Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is melting rapidly because of accelerated global warming and warmer waters under the glacier eating it out from below.

When it goes it will raise sea levels by 65 cms - sufficient to make scores of coastal cities unviable .

Say that sentence quickly and it doesn't mean much. Think about for any length of time and you realise that is game over for our current society.

How Australia will be impacted by the ‘doomsday glacier’ that could swallow cities​

The collapse of this one glacier could raise sea levels enough to swallow cities all over the world.
Maddison Brennan-Mills

3 min read
July 15, 2025 - 4:19PM
98 Comments

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Scientists travel to Antarctica to track ocean temperatures
Australian scientists have travelled to Antarctica to better understand the effects of a climate warning in the Southern Ocean.The... more

It sounds like something out of a disaster movie, but it’s a very real and concerning threat we are facing.
There’s a glacier in Antarctica so big and unstable that scientists from The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration call it the “Doomsday Glacier”.
And if it collapses, it could raise sea levels enough to swallow parts of cities all over the world.

There’s a glacier in Antarctica scientists are calling the “Doomsday Glacier.” Photo by HANDOUT / NASA / AFP)
Thwaites Glacier is in West Antarctica and is roughly the size of Great Britain. It’s more than 2 kilometres thick in places, which, when melted, is an astonishing amount of water.
Scientists warn that if it fully collapses, it could raise global sea levels by approximately 65 centimetres.

“If Thwaites Glacier collapses it would cause a rise of around 65cm (25 inches) in sea level,” said Dr Alastair Graham of the University of South Florida.

That might not sound like much … until you think about what it actually means.

A 65 centimetre rise is enough to flood huge areas of low-lying land. Cities like New York, London, and Bangkok would see chronic inundation

The "Doomsday Glacier" refers to Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, often highlighted for its potential to raise sea levels if it melts significantly. The term is dramatic, but let’s break it down with available data and reasoning.
Claims: Some media and reports suggest Thwaites could collapse rapidly, causing catastrophic sea-level rise (up to 10 feet or more) in a short time, triggering global coastal devastation. This stems from its size (roughly Florida-sized) and its role in holding back parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Debunking the Hype:
Timescale Overblown: Studies, like those from the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), indicate that significant melting or collapse would likely take centuries, not decades. A 2023 study in Nature modeled Thwaites’ retreat and suggested even under worst-case warming scenarios, complete collapse would take 200–1000 years. Rapid, apocalyptic scenarios are outliers, not consensus.
Sea-Level Contribution: Thwaites’ total melting could raise sea levels by about 65 cm (2.1 feet), per ITGC estimates, not the exaggerated 10+ feet often cited. The higher figures assume the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, which Thwaites only partially influences. Global sea-level rise projections (IPCC AR6) for 2100 range from 0.3–1.1 meters under various scenarios, with Thwaites as a contributor, not the sole driver.
Stability and Processes: Thwaites is retreating due to warm ocean water undercutting its ice shelf, but it’s not a simple "doomsday" trigger. Research from Science Advances (2022) shows grounding-line retreat is uneven, and natural processes like bedrock uplift could slow ice loss over time. The glacier’s behavior is complex, not a linear path to catastrophe.
Media Sensationalism: The "Doomsday" label often comes from clickbait or simplified reporting. For example, posts on X and some articles amplify worst-case scenarios without context, ignoring the gradual nature of ice-sheet dynamics or mitigation possibilities.
Reality Check: Thwaites is a concern for long-term sea-level rise, especially if emissions aren’t curbed. However, the idea of it causing sudden, global catastrophe is exaggerated. Current science points to manageable, gradual impacts over centuries, with adaptation strategies (e.g., coastal defenses) able to mitigate effects. Always check primary sources like IPCC reports or peer-reviewed studies over alarmist headlines

Did some one say ice melt, its that bad I stopped following..... climate change is a hoax bla bla bla

Highlights​

• Worldwide, most glaciers are shrinking or disappearing altogether.
• Based on preliminary data through the 2023/24 monitoring year, the climate reference glaciers tracked by the World Glacier Monitoring Service have lost, since 1970, ice mass equivalent to nearly 27.3 meters of liquid water—the same as slicing roughly 30 meters (98 feet) of ice off the entire surface of each glacier.
• Glaciers have shrunk every year for the past 37 years.
• Ice loss in mountain glaciers is accelerating: each of the last three complete decades has brought bigger declines than the decade before.