SUTA Toronto Chapter presents:
3 degrees: A discussion on climate change
by Mr. Lee Norton
June 27, 2013
at
Room 1130 (ground floor)
40 St. George Street, Bahen Centre,
University of Toronto
Abstract:
We are almost at the point where nature will take over. James Hansen claims that if we warm our atmosphere to 3 degrees above pre-industrial times, it will guarantee disaster as we will have hit a tipping point where the frozen methane hydrates will come out of the permafrost and the now cold ocean depths at a rate that will exceed our present fossil fuel emissions. Methane is about 30 times stronger than CO2. There is more methane stored than coal and oil put together. It will take the world past 6 degrees above our pre-industrial average. Now, 6 degrees is now believed to be the temperature the world was in the Permian Extinction that killed 95% of all life. Sediments indicate that the world was anoxic after this extinction and it took millions of years for life to come back. Dinosaurs, which came next, inhabited our planet for about 165 million years; modern man to date is listed at 165 thousand years. The Pliocine period had CO2 at 390 ppm & temperature at 3 degrees.
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