I'm getting fat and I know why....

[mudskipper]

more scare stories.

I like this one

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist 1970

It's foggy this morning. Looks like he was right.

[EternalOptimist]

It's foggy this morning. Looks like he was right.

eek. when his other predictions come true, it will become time to head for the B-Ark


By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist 1970

We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist, Earth day 1970

The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist, Earth day 1970


doomed I tell ya. maybe we should enter Kenneth Watt for 'The Viner award'

[BlasterBates]

The thing about acidification is that the Ocean is actually alkaline. It's not very scientific therefore to talk about "acidification". But there's no doubt it's a good environmental activist soundbite, because to suggest the Ocean is becoming less alkaline doesn't have a scary ring to it.

Of course any longterm changes in ph levels, if indeed there any, because it's so hard to measure on a global scale, are extremely miniscule, far less than the daily and geographic variations you get.

[pjclarke]

Fascinating. Could we have the source of the quotes, please and who the hell is/was Kenneth Watts?

Acidification is the process of making more acid or less alkaline, no difference, and yes it is occurring and it will be a multi-billion dollar problem. You really should widen your reading beyond WUWT.

Climatic Change, Online First

[BlasterBates]

Acidification is the process of making more acid or less alkaline, no difference,

Have you actually studied chemistry?

[pjclarke]

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted to the atmosphere by human activities is being absorbed by the oceans, making them more acidic (lowering the pH the measure of acidity).

Evidence indicates that emissions of carbon dioxide from human activities over the past 200 years have already led to a reduction in the average pH of surface seawater of 0.1 units and could fall by 0.5 units by the year 2100. This pH is probably lower than has been experienced for hundreds of millennia and, critically, at a rate of change probably 100 times greater than at any time over this period.

The report outlines our best understanding of the impacts of these chemical changes on the oceans. The impacts will be greater for some regions and ecosystems, and will be most severe for coral reefs and the Southern Ocean. The impacts of ocean acidification on other marine organisms and ecosystems are much less certain. We recommend a major international research effort be launched into this relatively new area of research.

We recommend that action needs to be taken now to reduce global emissions of CO2 from human activities to the atmosphere to avoid the risk of irreversible damage from ocean acidification.

The 2005 Royal Society report on Ocean Acidification.

But if you know better than the Royal Society, please feel free to explain where they have erred. Since you ask, my degree is in Physics, and I studied chemistry to A level.

[EternalOptimist]

Fascinating. Could we have the source of the quotes, please and who the hell is/was Kenneth Watts?

you dont know who Ken is ?
He was an early eco-zealot doomsayer. Never let a good crisis go to waste, and if there aren't any, invent one. He was the grandaddy of the watermelons.
Maybe you have heard of Ehrlich ?

By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist


when he was asked recently whether he was embarrassed about being so comprehensively wrong, he replied that he stood by every word.


heres another

Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist 1970

[pjclarke]

Ok don't answer the question. It's a free country.

And if you think starvation and malnutrition is not a major present day problem I suggest you check your facts.

[EternalOptimist]

Ok don't answer the question. It's a free country.

And if you think starvation and malnutrition is not a major present day problem I suggest you check your facts.

Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist 1970

[pjclarke]

Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause approximately 2 million premature deaths mostly in developing countries. Almost half of these deaths are due to pneumonia in children under 5 years of age.
Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. Those living in middle-income countries disproportionately experience this burden.

World Health Organisation.

WHO | Air quality and health

Ehrlich was optimistic, looks like.