Mammals--Including Us--and Climate Change

Science and chart heavy (and a little bit frightening as it is awesome) this lecture seems to show us that while mammals have, for literally millenia, waxed and waned with the changing tides of the climate (up to even 12 degree changes over many many years allowing for evolution)....here's the thing, the quickness with which climate change is occurring now in tandem with human-made destruction of natural habitats means evolution is fucked, too, and NO MAMMALIAN SPECIES in the history of mammalian species will be able to adapt to the worst case scenario of a six degree rapid temperature increase.

Steven Schneider

This lecture is awesome, and the guy giving it is now dead (he died a few months after this lecture of an apparent heart attack on a plane).  Some of his last thoughts are below:

"I really trust this generation of kids to make a difference. I know we can invent our way out of some of the problem.

"What we have to do is convince the bulk of the public, that amorphous middle. We're never going to convince that 25 percent who absolutely believe it's a conspiracy against American religious and economic freedom, and that this is some U.N. plot to take away our hegemony.

"And we don't need to convince the other 25 percent that is already convinced.

"It's that 50 percent in the middle that will listen to an argument, that is not immoral or deeply ideological, but that's a little lazy and ignorant, often quite frightened.

"We have to get to them to create a tipping point for a majority. And that can be done. My fear is that it's going to take a hurricane to take out Miami or fires in the West before they finally wake up.

"I just hope that it's milder crises sooner, and not more extreme events later."

Practical movement

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-980700582829425063#

Go green?

At the royal academy of sciences a few years ago the idea is to Go North, to move north, and if you're already there, plan for company very soon.

The idea expressed in this lecture suggests we tend toward adaptation rather than mitigation.

Even if we reduce carbon emissions, that will also decrease aerosols in the atmosphere that have a reflective effect currently (as pollution) and as the reflective layer it has a cooling effect. Remove the aerosols and we remove the 'protective' layer of reflection and the sun's warmth will nail us (with anywhere from a 2-4 degree raise in temperature). Either way it's getting hotter.