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by Hammer of Los » Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:07 am
by Sounder » Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:44 am
Sounder wrote:Well not that it’s apparent, but humans do have the facility to change the nature and expressions of their consciousness to a degree that does not seem available to other animals.
Simulist wrote...Not all humans have such abilities. And even if most humans were singularly unique in this way, other animals have superior abilities that humans do not possess.
, but the assertion was that humans possess an ability, ney even a tendency to change the expressions of their consciousness. You are welcome to refute or agree as you wish, but so far what you have given does not much address the issue. Our actions are the actions of natural forces in play, nothing more.
by barracuda » Wed Jun 30, 2010 10:00 am
by Simulist » Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:06 pm
Sounder wrote:Sounder wrote:Well not that it’s apparent, but humans do have the facility to change the nature and expressions of their consciousness to a degree that does not seem available to other animals.
Simulist wrote...Not all humans have such abilities. And even if most humans were singularly unique in this way, other animals have superior abilities that humans do not possess.
I guess it may be said then that while our ability is nascent, the facility is universal. No doubt, animal’s posse’s abilities that humans do not posses, maybe even a more direct connection to the divine
by Nordic » Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:05 pm
by freemason9 » Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:58 pm
by seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:48 am
We should give up trying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock
The scientist and inventor James Lovelock claims we should stop trying to save the planet from global warming and instead retreat to climate controlled cities
By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent3:54PM BST 08 Apr 2014
Saving the planet from climate change is ‘beyond our ability’ and we should stop wasting time trying to tackle global warming, a leading scientist has claimed
James Lovelock, who first detected CFCs in the atmosphere and proposed the Gaia hypotheses, claims society should retreat to ‘climate-controlled cities’ and give up on large expanses of land which will become uninhabitable.
Lovelock, who has just published his latest book A Rough Ride To The Future, claims we should be ‘strengthening our defences and making a sustainable retreat.’
“We’re reaching an age in history where you can no longer predict the future with any hope of success.
“We should give up vainglorious attempts to save the world.
“Britain is no longer a world power and we need to leave such schemes to the USA, Japan or China. We should spend out efforts adapting Britain to fight climate change.”
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to say the world will need a ‘Plan B’ because it is unlikely countries will reduce carbon emissions in time.
In March the IPCC said that global warming would increase flooding, storm surges, droughts and heatwaves.
Violent conflicts and food shortages were also forecast to increase over coming decades due to rising temperatures, while a growing number of animal and marine species will face increased risk of extinction.
Scientists said that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential consequences by the end of the century.
In his new book Lovelock writes: “We may have wasted valuable time, energy and resources by trying to grapple with climate change on a global scale.
“It sounds good to try to save the planet, but in reality we are not thinking of saving Gaia, we are thinking of saving Earth for us, or for our nation.
“The idea of ‘saving the planet’ is a foolish extravagance of romantic Northern ideologues and probably much beyond our ability.
“In a changing climate cities are most less vulnerable to external heat than our individuals. If most of us lived in cities, as it seems we soon will do, the regulation of the climate of these cities might be far easier, more economic and safer option in a hot climate than the regulation by geoengineering of the whole planet. “
He also claimed that life on Earth could move away from organic creatures towards computerised life-forms
“I think like all organisms on Earth our species has a limited lifespan,” he said.
“If we can somehow merge with our electronic creations in a larger scale endosymbiosis, it may provide a better next step in the evolution of humanity and Gaia.”
However Lovelock adds a cautionary warning. “I must admit an empathetic dread for some unfortunately future person whose body becomes connected to one of more of the ubiquitous social networks.
“I can imagine no punishment more severe than having my still comparatively clear mind overtaken by the spam of hucksters and the never-ceasing gossip of the Internet.”
by jakell » Thu Apr 10, 2014 11:19 am
by stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 10, 2014 1:45 pm
seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 10, 2014 8:48 am wrote:We should give up trying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock
The scientist and inventor James Lovelock claims we should stop trying to save the planet from global warming and instead retreat to climate controlled cities
By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent3:54PM BST 08 Apr 2014
Saving the planet from climate change is ‘beyond our ability’ and we should stop wasting time trying to tackle global warming, a leading scientist has claimed
James Lovelock, who first detected CFCs in the atmosphere and proposed the Gaia hypotheses, claims society should retreat to ‘climate-controlled cities’ and give up on large expanses of land which will become uninhabitable.
Lovelock, who has just published his latest book A Rough Ride To The Future, claims we should be ‘strengthening our defences and making a sustainable retreat.’
“We’re reaching an age in history where you can no longer predict the future with any hope of success.
“We should give up vainglorious attempts to save the world.
“Britain is no longer a world power and we need to leave such schemes to the USA, Japan or China. We should spend out efforts adapting Britain to fight climate change.”
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is expected to say the world will need a ‘Plan B’ because it is unlikely countries will reduce carbon emissions in time.
In March the IPCC said that global warming would increase flooding, storm surges, droughts and heatwaves.
Violent conflicts and food shortages were also forecast to increase over coming decades due to rising temperatures, while a growing number of animal and marine species will face increased risk of extinction.
Scientists said that by taking immediate steps to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades, there could be a reduction in potential consequences by the end of the century.
In his new book Lovelock writes: “We may have wasted valuable time, energy and resources by trying to grapple with climate change on a global scale.
“It sounds good to try to save the planet, but in reality we are not thinking of saving Gaia, we are thinking of saving Earth for us, or for our nation.
“The idea of ‘saving the planet’ is a foolish extravagance of romantic Northern ideologues and probably much beyond our ability.
“In a changing climate cities are most less vulnerable to external heat than our individuals. If most of us lived in cities, as it seems we soon will do, the regulation of the climate of these cities might be far easier, more economic and safer option in a hot climate than the regulation by geoengineering of the whole planet. “
He also claimed that life on Earth could move away from organic creatures towards computerised life-forms
“I think like all organisms on Earth our species has a limited lifespan,” he said.
“If we can somehow merge with our electronic creations in a larger scale endosymbiosis, it may provide a better next step in the evolution of humanity and Gaia.”
However Lovelock adds a cautionary warning. “I must admit an empathetic dread for some unfortunately future person whose body becomes connected to one of more of the ubiquitous social networks.
“I can imagine no punishment more severe than having my still comparatively clear mind overtaken by the spam of hucksters and the never-ceasing gossip of the Internet.”
The Dimming Prospects for Human Survival
By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet
02 April 14
From nuclear war to the destruction of the environment, humanity is steering the wrong course.
previous article I wrote explored how security is a high priority for government planners: security, that is, for state power and its primary constituency, concentrated private power - all of which entails that official policy must be protected from public scrutiny.
In these terms, government actions fall in place as quite rational, including the rationality of collective suicide. Even instant destruction by nuclear weapons has never ranked high among the concerns of state authorities.
To cite an example from the late Cold War: In November 1983 the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched a military exercise designed to probe Russian air defenses, simulating air and naval attacks and even a nuclear alert.
These actions were undertaken at a very tense moment. Pershing II strategic missiles were being deployed in Europe. President Reagan, fresh from the "Evil Empire" speech, had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars," which the Russians understood to be effectively a first-strike weapon - a standard interpretation of missile defense on all sides.
Naturally these actions caused great alarm in Russia, which, unlike the U.S., was quite vulnerable and had repeatedly been invaded.
Newly released archives reveal that the danger was even more severe than historians had previously assumed. The NATO exercise "almost became a prelude to a preventative (Russian) nuclear strike," according to an account last year by Dmitry Adamsky in the Journal of Strategic Studies .
Nor was this the only close call. In September 1983, Russia's early-warning systems registered an incoming missile strike from the United States and sent the highest-level alert. The Soviet military protocol was to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.
The Soviet officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, intuiting a false alarm, decided not to report the warnings to his superiors. Thanks to his dereliction of duty, we're alive to talk about the incident.
Security of the population was no more a high priority for Reagan planners than for their predecessors. Such heedlessness continues to the present, even putting aside the numerous near-catastrophic accidents, reviewed in a chilling new book, "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety," by Eric Schlosser.
It's hard to contest the conclusion of the last commander of the Strategic Air Command, Gen . Lee Butler, that humanity has so far survived the nuclear age "by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion."
The government's regular, easy acceptance of threats to survival is almost too extraordinary to capture in words.
In 1995, well after the Soviet Union had collapsed, the U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, which is in charge of nuclear weapons, published a study, "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence."
A central conclusion is that the U.S. must maintain the right of a nuclear first strike, even against non-nuclear states. Furthermore, nuclear weapons must always be available, because they "cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict."
Thus nuclear weapons are always used, just as you use a gun if you aim it but don't fire when robbing a store - a point that Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has repeatedly stressed.
Stratcom goes on to advise that "planners should not be too rational about determining ... what an adversary values," all of which must be targeted. "[I]t hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. . That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries."
It is "beneficial [for ...our strategic posture] that some elements may appear to be potentially'out of control'" - and thus posing a constant threat of nuclear attack.
Not much in this document pertains to the obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to make "good faith" efforts to eliminate the nuclear-weapon scourge from the earth. What resounds, rather, is an adaptation of Hilaire Belloc's famous 1898 couplet about the Maxim gun:
Whatever happens we have got,
The Atom Bomb and they have not.
Plans for the future are hardly promising. In December the Congressional Budget Office reported that the U.S. nuclear arsenal will cost $355 billion over the next decade. In January the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimated that the U.S. would spend $1 trillion on the nuclear arsenal in the next 30 years.
And of course the United States is not alone in the arms race. As Butler observed, it is a near miracle that we have escaped destruction so far. The longer we tempt fate, the less likely it is that we can hope for divine intervention to perpetuate the miracle.
In the case of nuclear weapons, at least we know in principle how to overcome the threat of apocalypse: Eliminate them.
But another dire peril casts its shadow over any contemplation of the future - environmental disaster. It's not clear that there even is an escape, though the longer we delay, the more severe the threat becomes - and not in the distant future. The commitment of governments to the security of their populations is therefore clearly exhibited by how they address this issue.
Today the United States is crowing about "100 years of energy independence" as the country becomes "the Saudi Arabia of the next century" - very likely the final century of human civilization if current policies persist.
One might even take a speech of President Obama's two years ago in the oil town of Cushing, Okla., to be an eloquent death-knell for the species.
He proclaimed with pride, to ample applause, that "Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That's important to know. Over the last three years, I've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We're opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some."
The applause also reveals something about government commitment to security. Industry profits are sure to be secured as "producing more oil and gas here at home" will continue to be "a critical part" of energy strategy, as the president promised.
The corporate sector is carrying out major propaganda campaigns to convince the public that climate change, if happening at all, does not result from human activity. These efforts are aimed at overcoming the excessive rationality of the public, which continues to be concerned about the threats that scientists overwhelmingly regard as near-certain and ominous.
To put it bluntly, in the moral calculus of today's capitalism, a bigger bonus tomorrow outweighs the fate of one's grandchildren.
What are the prospects for survival then? They are not bright. But the achievements of those who have struggled for centuries for greater freedom and justice leave a legacy that can be taken up and carried forward - and must be, and soon, if hopes for decent survival are to be sustained. And nothing can tell us more eloquently what kind of creatures we are.
This is Part II of an article adapted from a lecture by Noam Chomsky on Feb. 28, sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, Calif (Read part 1 here).
by seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 10, 2014 4:13 pm
stillrobertpaulsen Evidence of Acceleration of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption on All Fronts
Thursday, 10 April 2014 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis
Evidence of Acceleration on all Fronts of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption
"The frog does not drink up the pond
in which he lives."
~ Sioux Proverb
This month's dispatch comes on the heels of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) recent report, and the news is not good.
"No one on this planet will be untouched by climate change," IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri announced. The report warned that climate impacts are already "severe, pervasive, and irreversible."
The IPCC report was one of many released in recent weeks, and all of them bring dire predictions of what is coming. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) issued a report warning that "the rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades." The report went on to warn of the risk "of abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes in the Earth's climate system with massively disruptive impacts," including the possible "large scale collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, loss of the Amazon rain forest, die-off of coral reefs, and mass extinctions."
To read more about anthropomorphic climate disruption, click here.
Just prior to the release of the IPCC report, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that 13 of the 14 warmest years on record had all occurred since 2000. The agency's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, described the global trend: "Every decade has been warmer than the preceding one over the last 40 years. In other words, the decade 2001-2010 was warmer than the '90s, which in turn were warmer than the '80s, which were warmer than the '70s. All the best models were used for this study, and the conclusion is actually very interesting and of concern. The conclusion is that these heat waves, it is not possible to reproduce these heat waves in the models if you don't take into account human influence." Jarraud also noted greenhouse gases are now at a record high, which guarantees the Earth's atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. Arctic sea ice in 2013 did not reach the record lows seen in 2012 for minimum extent in the summer, but nevertheless reached its sixth lowest extent on record. The WMO noted all seven of the lowest Arctic sea-ice extents took place in the past seven years, starting with 2007, which scientists were "stunned" by at the time.
NASA released the results of a study showing that long-term planetary warming is continuing along the higher end of many projections. "All the evidence now agrees that future warming is likely to be towards the high end of our estimates, so it's more clear than ever that we need large, rapid emissions reductions to avoid the worst damages from climate change," lead author and NASA climatologist Drew Shindell said. If he sounds alarmist, it's because he is, and with good reason. The NASA study shows a global increase in temperatures of nine degrees by the end of the century.
This is consistent with a January Nature study on climate sensitivity, which found we are headed toward a "most-likely warming of roughly 5C (9 F) above current temperatures, which is 6C (11 F) above preindustrial" temperatures by 2100. Bear in mind that humans have never lived on a planet at temperatures 3.5C above our preindustrial baseline.
Hence, as contemporary studies continue to provide ever-higher temperature projections, they are beginning to approach higher estimates from previous studies. A 2011 paper authored by Jeffrey Kiehl from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and published in the journal Science "found that carbon dioxide may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models of global climate." Contrary to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) worst-case scenario of a 6C rise by 2100, which itself would result in a virtually uninhabitable planet, Kiehl's paper distressingly concludes that, at current emission rates, we may actually see an unimaginable 16C rise by the end of the century.
"The last time it was 6C there were snakes the size of yellow school buses in the Amazon," Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona, told Truthout. McPherson, a climate change expert of 25 years, maintains the blog Nature Bats Last. "The largest mammal was the size of a shrew," he said. "And the rise in temperature occurred over thousands of years, not decades. I doubt mammals survive - and certainly not large-bodied mammals - at 6C."
Dr McPherson went on to explain further what the planet would look like as temperatures increase.
"Rapid rise to 4C eliminates all or nearly all plankton in the ocean, along with a majority of land plants," he said. "The latter cannot keep up with rapid change. The former will be acidified out of existence. At 16C, your guess is as good as mine. But humans will not be involved."
Bear in mind that the "current" emission rates in Kiehl's study were significantly lower than those of today, as they were from more than three years ago. Emission rates have grown in each succeeding year.
Evidence is mounting that we are in the midst of a great extinction of species. An "ecocide" is occurring, as the human race is in the process of destroying life on the planet. This sobering thought becomes clearer now as we take our monthly tour of significant global pollution and anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) related events.
Earth
Ongoing drought and other ACD-related impacts have caused the Amargosa vole, one of the rarest mammals in North America, to become an endangered species. This saddening occurrence shouldn't come as a big surprise, given that chronic drought and shifting weather patterns are causing things like a wall of dust 1,000 feet tall and 200 miles wide to roar across parts of West Texas and New Mexico.
Evidencing warnings from the IPCC report about ACD's dramatic impact on wide-scale food production, the president of the World Bank warned that battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to ten years. As if on cue, hungry monkeys in northern India have begun raiding farms as their forest habitats shrink.
Meanwhile, on the coastal areas of Alaska, melting permafrost and stronger storms are combining to erode coastline and cause greater numbers of villages to begin contemplating evacuation.
Water
A new NASA study shows that the length of the melt season for Arctic sea ice is growing by several days each decade, allowing the Arctic Ocean to absorb enough additional solar radiation to melt as much as four feet of the Arctic ice cap's thickness in some places.
Going into wildfire season, California is coming off its warmest winter on record, aggravating its enduring drought, which has caused the Sacramento River to drop so low that the state may need to truck 30 million salmon from hatcheries to the sea. California's central valley farmland was in trouble prior to the historic drought, but now it appears to be on its last legs. The area, critical to the US supply of fruit and vegetables, was suffering from decades of irrigation that leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil, which then had nowhere to go, thus threatening both crops and wildlife. Now, to make matters worse, remaining aquifers are being drained at an alarming pace, with some farmers even drilling more than 1,200 feet down in their ongoing search for ever-more-rare water for their struggling farms.
Meanwhile, Texas and New Mexico have been waging an interstate legal battle over water from the ever-shrinking Rio Grande. Both states struggle with ongoing drought, while farmers in Texas are still reeling from the historic 2011 drought as moderate to exceptional drought continues to affect 64 percent of that state. Fierce legal and political battles over who controls the water are now becoming the norm in California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and other western states.
Drought-parched Wichita Falls, Texas, is so desperate for water that officials there are currently awaiting state regulatory approval for a project that will recycle effluent from their wastewater treatment plant, which means residents would begin drinking "potty water."
The severe drought across the west has forced the Mount Ashland Ski area in Oregon to remain closed for its entire season, something it has not had to do for 50 years.
"Higher food prices, water bills and utility rates," the Las Vegas Sun reported recently of the cascade of crises impacting the US West due to drought:
Greater wildfire risk. Shrinking communities, fewer jobs and weakening economies. Amid growing concern that the drought gripping the West isn't history repeating itself but instead is a new normal brought about by climate change, the effects of the dwindling water supply in the region are beginning to become all too clear. As a pattern of longer dry periods and shorter wet cycles continues, the effects will be felt across the region by millions of people from farms to cities, faucets to wallets. More than 70 percent of the West - a zone spreading across 15 states - is experiencing some form of abnormal dryness or drought, with 11 drought-affected western and central states designated as primary natural disaster areas by the Agriculture Department.
In Canada, the mining of the tar sands continues to destroy vast areas of sensitive wetlands in Alberta, with scientists warning that it is impossible to rebuild or rehabilitate the complex ecosystems there after the industrial assault of the mining process.
A recent report underscores the impact of the oil and gas industry heyday in Canada on the indigenous populations there, as "industrial development" and warming temperatures are leading to growing hunger and malnutrition in Canada's Arctic.
Rising seas and coastal erosion problems are persisting and spreading around the globe as ACD progresses. 18 months after Hurricane Sandy lashed the northeast coast of the US, homeowners living on the coast have to decide whether to rebuild or move inland...a decision everyone living on a coast will eventually have to make.
China now estimates it has lost $2.6 billion from ACD-linked storms and rising sea levels since 2008, while a new report has confirmed that people living in the coastal regions of Asia will face some of the worst impacts of ACD as it continues to progress.
Continuing rising temperatures have caused scientists to warn of "disturbing" rates of ice melt on Africa's highest peaks like Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, saying that within two decades even the highest peaks on the continent will no longer have any ice - only bare rock.
Meanwhile, the rate of ice melt on the Greenland ice sheet has researchers alarmed. It was long believed that the interior of Greenland's huge ice sheet was resilient to the impacts of ACD, but no more. Greenland recorded its highest temperatures ever in 2013, and the equivalent of three Chesapeake Bays' worth of water is melting off the island every single year, raising global sea levels.
Along with storing over 90 percent of the heat, the planet's oceans continue to bear the brunt of the impacts from ACD. More than 24 million metric tons of CO2 from the industrial-growth society are absorbed into the seas every single day, and are causing seawater to become more acidic, a phenomenon that is already producing dire consequences.
Fishermen in British Columbia are struggling to deal with catastrophic financial losses as millions of oysters and scallops are dying off in record numbers along the West Coast. Experts suggest, of course, that this is caused by increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which leads to rising ocean acidity.
Recent research shows that as ACD continues to warm the oceans, fish growth is being stunted: a variety of North Sea fish species have shrunk in size by as much as 29 percent over the past four decades. Off the coast of Australia, warming oceans are causing jellyfish blooms to increase in size to vast levels, causing them to inhibit both the environment and fishing and tourism industries.
The final and likely the most important note on water this month: A new study published in Nature Climate Change has revealed a very troubling fact - that the deep ocean current near Antarctica is changing due to ACD. "Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica," one of the scientists/authors said. "This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we're likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change." Given that the Southern Ocean is critical in terms of regulating climate, the slowing current is an ominous sign for our future.
Air
Air pollution and its related problems seem to be increasing exponentially.
Toxic smog engulfing Britain caused more than 1.6 million people (30 percent of the population) to suffer asthma attacks.
After exceeding safe levels for five days, air pollution prompted a Paris car ban.
In North Dakota, gas flaring related to fracking has doubled, pumping even more CO2 into the atmosphere.
In India, where being a traffic cop is a life-threatening occupation due to air pollution, people are suffering from some of the worst air pollution in the world. It is so bad that diesel fumes there are even impacting glacier melt in the Himalayas.
Pollution haze in Sumatra has blanketed several provinces there over the last two months, causing thousands to suffer from various pollution-related illnesses as the air quality continues to decline.
Tons of toxic materials are being released in Virginia, including millions of pounds of aromatic chemicals.
The World Health Organization now estimates that air pollution killed seven million people in 2012, adding that one in eight deaths worldwide were tied to air pollution, making it the single largest environmental health risk on the planet.
Not surprisingly, scientists in Boulder are reporting record-early CO2 readings at their key reading site at the NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. The readings hit the key benchmark of 400 parts per million (ppm) for CO2 at least five days in a row recently. 400 ppm was recorded for the first time only last year, and that level was not recorded until May 19th.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have seasonal swings which tend to peak in May. "Each year it creeps up," the director of the global monitoring division at NOAA, said. "Eventually, we'll see where it isn't below 400 parts per million anywhere in the world. We're on our way to doing that."
Fire
The New York Times reported: "'Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat?' the online ad reads. 'Come to Fukushima.' That grim posting targeting the destitute, by a company seeking laborers for the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is one of the starkest indications yet of an increasingly troubled search for workers willing to carry out the hazardous decommissioning at the site."
However, those working directly at Fukushima are not the only ones exposed to its lingering effects. As radioactive water from the Fukushima disaster continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean, the FDA has added testing of Alaska salmon to its radiation monitoring program due to possible contamination. And US sailors who were aboard the Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which was involved in the Fukushima relief effort, are suing TEPCO over illnesses they say were caused by being exposed to radioactive plumes from the nuclear meltdown.
Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute have crowd-sourced a network of volunteers taking water samples at beaches along the US West Coast in an effort to capture a detailed look at the levels of radiation drifting across the ocean from Fukushima. "We know there's contaminated water coming out of there, even today," Ken Buesseler, a senior scientist at Woods Hole, said. "In fact, it is the biggest pulse of radioactive liquid ever dropped in the ocean."
This is of particular concern because it is an example of ramifications and chronic problems resulting from meltdowns occurring at one nuclear power plant.
Given the IPCC's report of how worsening ACD will cause disruptions to our infrastructure and generate greater social unrest, it is clear that power disruptions are very likely in our not-so-distant future.
Nuclear power plants are intensely dependent on the power grid to function, and to keep the fuel rods and power cells cooled. Without a steady stream of large amounts of electricity, the 450 active nuclear power plants around the globe will all go into meltdown.
Fukushima is but one example.
Denial and Reality
While the pollution insults to the planet and ever-increasing and obvious signs of advancing ACD continue to mount, the urge for many people to bury their heads in the sand, often at the request or manipulation of industry and its media arms, continues apace as well.
The state of Wyoming has become the first state to block new science standards, because the standards include an expectation that students will understand that humans have significantly altered the planet's biosphere.
Corporate media's ability to misinform and manipulate the masses should never be underestimated, as a recent Gallup poll found that only 36 percent of US citizens believe that ACD would seriously impact their lives.
Recently the Republican-led US House of Representatives advanced a bill that would require federal weather agencies to focus more on predicting storms and less on climate studies... hence promoting denial of ACD.
The aforementioned efforts are the modern equivalent of passengers on the Titanic who opted to stay in the bar.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly challenging to even keep pace with all the signs.
While the eastern and central US experienced a colder-than-average winter this year, the National Climatic Center released data showing that most of the rest of the planet registered the eighth-warmest winter on record.
Penn State climatologist Michael Mann wrote in Scientific American recently that a climate crisis looms in the very near future, saying that if humanity continues burning fossil fuels as we are, we will cross the threshold into environmental ruin by 2036.
As noted earlier, one of the world's largest and most knowledgeable scientific bodies, the AAAS, wants to make the reality of ACD very clear: Just as smoking causes cancer, so too are humanity's CO2 emissions causing Earth to change, with potentially unknown and unalterable impacts. The AAAS's Alan Leshner said, "What we are trying to do is to move the debate from whether human-induced climate change is reality."
The group's full report, an important read, adds: "The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk."
Upon request, Dr McPherson provided Truthout his latest writings, which address the likelihood of abrupt climate disruption and even the possibility of near-term human extinction:
Gradual change is not guaranteed, as pointed out by the US National Academy of Sciences in December 2013: "The history of climate on the planet - as read in archives such as tree rings, ocean sediments, and ice cores - is punctuated with large changes that occurred rapidly, over the course of decades to as little as a few years." The December 2013 report echoes one from Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution more than a decade earlier. Writing for the 3 September 2012 issue of Global Policy, Michael Jennings concludes that "a suite of amplifying feedback mechanisms, such as massive methane leaks from the sub-sea Arctic Ocean, have engaged and are probably unstoppable." During a follow-up interview with Alex Smith on Radio Ecoshock, Jennings admits that "Earth's climate is already beyond the worst scenarios." Skeptical Science finally catches up to reality on 2 April 2014 with an essay titled, "Alarming new study makes today's climate change more comparable to Earth's worst mass extinction." The conclusion from this conservative source: "Until recently the scale of the Permian Mass Extinction was seen as just too massive, its duration far too long, and dating too imprecise for a sensible comparison to be made with today's climate change. No longer.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:57 pm
seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 10, 2014 3:13 pm wrote::hug1: stillrobertpaulsenEvidence of Acceleration of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption on All Fronts
Thursday, 10 April 2014 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | News Analysis
Evidence of Acceleration on all Fronts of Anthropogenic Climate Disruption
"The frog does not drink up the pond
in which he lives."
~ Sioux Proverb
Much love to you too, seemslikeadream!
Dahr Jamail has really been great on this subject. I found this recent post of his illuminating too.Dahr Jamail | The Vanishing Arctic Ice Cap
Monday, 31 March 2014 10:07 By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
An Arctic largely devoid of ice, giant methane outbursts causing tsunamis in the North Atlantic, and global sea levels rising by several meters by mid-century sound like the stuff of science fiction.
But to a growing number of scientists studying Anthropogenic Climate Disruption (ACD/climate change), these dramatic predictions are very real possibilities in our not-so-distant future, thanks to the vanishing Arctic ice cap, which is continuing its rapid decrease in both volume and area.
"The polar bear is us." - Patricia Romero Lankao, National Center for Atmospheric Research
Arctic sea ice researchers are predicting that sea ice will no longer last through summers in the next couple of years, and even US Navy researchers have predicted an ice-free Arctic by 2016. Whichever year the phenomenon begins, it will be the first time humans have existed on Earth without year-round sea ice in the Arctic, and scientists warn that this is when "abrupt climate change" passes the point of no return.
To read more about anthropomorphic climate disruption and how environments and communities suffer from corporate profit-seeking, click here.
"In the first year that this happens, the open Arctic Ocean state will only last for a few weeks to a month or so," Paul Beckwith, a climatology and meteorology professor at the University of Ottawa, Canada, told Truthout. "Within a year or two, the open water duration [no sea ice] will last for several months, and within a decade or so the positive feedbacks will likely clear out the Arctic Ocean basin for most of the year."
"As the planet transitions through this abrupt climate change, there will be wrenching turmoil and conflict for human civilizations."
Beckwith, an engineer and physicist who is also researching abrupt climate change in both present day and in the paleo records of the deep past, warns that losing the Arctic sea ice will create a state that "will represent a very different planet, with a much higher global average temperature, as much as 5 to 6 degrees C warmer within a few decades, in which snow and ice in the northern hemisphere becomes very rare or even vanishes year round."
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's most authoritative voice on climate science, whose reports influence policy and planning decisions of national governments across the world, has just released its latest report. The IPCC has been accused by much of the scientific community of having a starkly conservative bias.
Scientific American has said of the IPCC: "Across two decades and thousands of pages of reports, the world's most authoritative voice on climate science has consistently understated the rate and intensity of climate change and the danger those impacts represent."
However, the recently released IPCC report is raising eyebrows: Even this conservative body is predicting dire threats for people and other species in the near future, and these risks may very well mean "abrupt or drastic changes" that could lead to unstoppable and irreversible climate shifts like the melting of both the Arctic ice cap and Greenland's glacial ice.
According to the IPCC report, the polar bear is not alone in being under threat.
"The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, referring to the first species to be listed as threatened by global warming due to melting sea ice.
Beckwith, who believes the planet is already in the early stages of abrupt ACD, offered grave predictions of what we might expect from losing the Arctic ice.
"As the planet transitions through this abrupt climate change, there will be wrenching turmoil and conflict for human civilizations," he explained. "As the extreme weather events ramp up this will result in a frenzy of human activity to attempt to adapt and mitigate. Essentially, this tipping point in the Arctic will inevitably result in a tipping point in human response to the problem."
"Critical to the Earth System"
John Nissen is chairman of the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, a collection of scientists and experts whose mission is to warn the global community of the crisis we face if the Arctic ice melts. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge University and now studies ACD full time, with a focus on the role of Arctic sea ice within the Earth climactic system.
"Arctic sea ice is critical to the Earth System because of its role in controlling the planet's temperature, climate and currents," Nissen told Truthout. "Warm currents from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans flow into the Arctic, and are cooled. Extra warming of these currents has resulted in a retreat of the sea ice with loss of albedo [solar reflection] as the sea ice is replaced by open water. The open water absorbs the heat, which accumulates and helps to melt the sea ice the following year in a vicious cycle of warming and melting."
Nissen explained that when the sea ice no longer forms in the summer, there will already have been a great reduction in albedo. Arctic warming, which is already occurring at 1 degree C per decade, will accelerate at a rate of several degrees C per decade from then on.
There is historical precedent for this, as Arctic warming of 7 degrees in one decade occurred at the end of the Younger Dryas, an abrupt climate change event accompanied by many meters of sea-level rise. The Younger Dryas is one of the more commonly used examples of abrupt climate change of cold climatic conditions and drought that occurred between approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years ago. While there are many theories, the event is thought to have been caused by the collapse of the North American ice sheets.
"Arctic ice serves as a planetary air conditioner. We've never had humans on a planet without Arctic ice, which suggests that the planet is too warm for large-bodied mammals in the absence of the planetary air conditioner."
Guy McPherson, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources, and ecology at the University of Arizona and a climate change expert of 25 years, explained to Truthout why the Arctic is so critically important to the planetary weather system.
"Arctic ice serves as a planetary air conditioner," McPherson said. "We've never had humans on a planet without Arctic ice, which suggests that the planet is too warm for large-bodied mammals in the absence of the planetary air conditioner."
With an Arctic that is ice-free in the summers, McPherson predicts rapid, dramatic changes.
"Earth will heat up quickly," he said. "Consider, for example, a relatively simple example from the realm of physics. Slightly more than 79 calories are required to convert one gram of ice at 0 C to 1 milliliter of water at 0 C. But once the ice is converted to water, adding the same amount of energy increases the temperature of the water to slightly more than 79 C."
He then goes on to imagine that on the scale of the Arctic Ocean.
"Without any ice in the Arctic to absorb energy, the energy will be absorbed by the dark ocean water," he said. "Even a tiny bit of ice provides a tremendous buffer to runaway heating by the ocean (hence, the planet)."
Heat moves from the warm equator to the cold poles of the Earth via the atmosphere circulation patterns and ocean currents. But due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, the planet system is warming.
In the Arctic, this means the warming is causing the sea ice volume and spring terrestrial snow cover to decline extremely quickly, thus exposing the darker underlying surfaces of ocean water and permafrost on land.
"These darker surfaces absorb more solar energy, and thus there is an amplification of warming of the Arctic at rates five to eight times faster than the overall warming average," Beckwith said. "This decreases the temperature difference between the Arctic and the equator and thus decreases the heat moving from the equator northward, resulting in a slowing of the westward movement of the high-speed winds making up the jet stream. The jet stream becomes wavier and leads to an increase in the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial extent location and variation."
Nissen is seeing the same phenomenon, with the loss of Arctic sea ice already changing the jet stream, which is the weather driver for North America and northern Europe.
"This has led to a decline in the temperature gradient between tropics and Arctic, thus destabilizing the jet stream and mid-latitude weather systems, leading to an increase in extreme weather events, tantamount to abrupt climate change," he said.
The sea ice also plays a role in driving the global conveyor current: As sea ice is formed in the Arctic Ocean, salt is expelled and the old dense saline water falls to the seabed to form a deep-level current that flows to the edge of Antarctica. These thermohaline currents are critically important, as the state of their circulation has a large impact on the Earth's.
Disturbingly, a new study shows that similar currents in the Antarctic may already be slowing down.
The study by the University of Pennsylvania's Irina Marinov and Raffaele Bernardello and colleagues from McGill University found that ACD may be causing the slowdown of one of these conveyer belts, with potentially serious consequences for the future of the planet's climate.
"Our observations are showing us that there is less formation of these deep waters near Antarctica," Marinov said. "This is worrisome because, if this is the case, we're likely going to see less uptake of human produced, or anthropogenic, heat and carbon dioxide by the ocean, making this a positive feedback loop for climate change."
A Rapidly Declining Situation
Professor Peter Wadhams, a leading Arctic expert at Cambridge University, has been measuring Arctic ice for 40 years.
"The fall-off in ice volume is so fast it is going to bring us to zero very quickly," Wadhams told a reporter. According to current data, he estimates "with 95 percent confidence" that the Arctic will have completely ice-free summers by 2018.
Wadhams works with Nissen, and the two presented a paper on their studies at the European Geosciences Union in 2010, warning the conference of the dire consequences of massive methane releases if the Arctic ice continues to melt as it is.
Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850.
In the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas that, on a relatively short-term time scale, is far more destructive than carbon dioxide (CO2). It is 23 times as powerful as CO2 per molecule on a 100-year time scale and 105 times more potent when it comes to heating the planet on a 20-year time scale - and the Arctic permafrost, onshore and off, is packed with the stuff.
"The seabed," says Wadhams, "is offshore permafrost, but is now warming and melting. We are now seeing great plumes of methane bubbling up in the Siberian Sea … millions of square miles where methane cover is being released."
As Truthout previously reported, and according to a study published in Nature Geoscience last fall, twice as much methane as previously thought is being released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, a two million square kilometer area off the coast of Northern Siberia. Its researchers found that at least 17 teragrams (one million tons) of methane are being released into the atmosphere each year, whereas a 2010 study had found only seven teragrams heading into the atmosphere.
According to a NASA research report, "Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?":
"Over hundreds of millennia, Arctic permafrost soils have accumulated vast stores of organic carbon - an estimated 1,400 to 1,850 petagrams of it (a petagram is 2.2 trillion pounds, or 1 billion metric tons). That's about half of all the estimated organic carbon stored in Earth's soils. In comparison, about 350 petagrams of carbon have been emitted from all fossil-fuel combustion and human activities since 1850. Most of this carbon is located in thaw-vulnerable topsoils within 10 feet (3 meters) of the surface."
"Outbursts of methane from the seabed and/or ice from GIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] are liable to cause tsunamis in the North Atlantic."
The NASA study highlights the discovery of active and growing methane vents up to 150 kilometers across. A scientist on a research ship in the area described this as a bubbling as far as the eye can see, in which the seawater looks like a vast pool of seltzer. Between the summers of 2010 and 2011, in fact, scientists found that in the course of a year methane vents only 30 centimeters across had grown a kilometer wide, a 333,333 percent increase and an example of the non-linear rapidity with which parts of the planet are responding to climate disruption.
This information is part of why Nessin made this dire prediction:
"Outbursts of methane from the seabed and/or ice from GIS [Greenland Ice Sheet] are liable to cause tsunamis in the North Atlantic."
He also believes there is a "small probability but high risk of an outburst of many gigatons of methane, sufficient to escalate global warming towards many degrees of temperature rise with intolerable climate change and societal collapse."
Nessin sees the most immediate effect of continuing, unchecked decline in sea ice and acceleration of Arctic warming being an escalation in climate change, as the jet stream and weather systems are further disrupted from their old norms.
"This climate change would inevitably lead to crop failures, a worldwide increase in the price of food, widespread starvation, and conflict through much of Africa and Asia," he warned. "We are seeing the start already, but without intervention the situation could decline rapidly over the next decade."
Beckwith gave similarly ominous warnings of what could be coming.
"There will be attempts to cool the Arctic to keep the methane and carbon dioxide from explosively escaping from the terrestrial permafrost and marine sediments," he said. "In the transitions, many governments will fall and martial law will be implemented in many countries as there is a resource scramble for ever scarcer fresh water and food."
Sealing the Fate of the Planet
Nessin believes the Greenland Ice Sheet ice discharge is liable to continue growing exponentially, with a doubling every five years, causing many meters of sea-level rise by mid century.
"The icebergs and fresh water generated to the west of Greenland are liable to divert the warm currents flowing across the Atlantic, thus partially turning the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, with a devastating effect on Northern Hemisphere climate," he warned.
Meanwhile, evidence of runaway ACD continues to mount.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said recently.
The group's recently released annual assessment of global weather found that 2013 was the sixth warmest year on record (tied with 2007), and that there has been no let-up in global warming. Thirteen of the 14 warmest years have occurred since 2000 and each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, with the decade 2001-2010 being the warmest on record, according to the WMO.
"There is no standstill in global warming. The warming of our oceans has accelerated, and at lower depths. More than 90 percent of the excess energy trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the oceans," Dr Jarraud said of ACD's impact on the oceans. "Levels of these greenhouse gases are at record levels, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable."
The WMO report revealed that Arctic sea ice in 2013 had fallen to a level that is the sixth lowest on record. The WMO noted all seven of the lowest Arctic sea-ice extents took place in the past seven years, starting with 2007, which "stunned" scientists at the time.
"Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change." - Michel Jarraud, the secretary-general of the UN's World Meteorological Organization
The depth of the crisis, and ramifications thereof, has led Nissen and his group to controversially advocate the use of geo-engineering techniques to cool the Arctic. Geo-engineering, the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climatic system with the aim of reducing global warming, is extremely controversial due to its obvious potential of unintended consequences.
"I see no other way to prevent an inexorable meltdown of the Arctic ice cap with dreadful consequences for all mankind including catastrophic global warming from the methane which would be released," Nissen said. "The simple approach to prevent such catastrophes is to cool the Arctic using geo-engineering techniques such as cloud brightening and stratospheric aerosols."
Nissen believes the greatest risk to human society and the rest of the planet is that if attention is diverted away from the important role of Arctic sea ice, "intervention to cool the Arctic will be too late to prevent complete Arctic meltdown, which would surely lead to a collapse of civilization and a greatly reduced human population. Complete extinction would be in the cards."
McPherson also believes that near-term human extinction could eventually result from losing the Arctic sea ice, and added, "A world without Arctic ice will be completely new to humans."
The laws of physics are non-negotiable.
As to what should be done, however, he disagrees with Nissen and others promoting geo-engineering as a solution.
"Although geo-engineering has been proposed by some people, the literature suggests such attempts are misguided. At the level of society, I doubt there is anything to be done," said McPherson. "Whereas human ingenuity painted us into this corner, I do not believe human ingenuity is capable of providing an escape. Tim Garrett pointed out in Climatic Change nearly five years ago that only complete collapse of industrial civilization prevents runaway greenhouse. Since Garrett's paper was published, scientific literature has illustrated about 30 self-reinforcing feedback loops with respect to climate change."
Sixty-three percent of all human-generated carbon emissions have been produced in just the last 25 years, but science reveals a 40-year time lag between global emissions (our actions) and climate impacts (the consequences). Hence, we haven't even begun to experience the worst of our emissions, and won't, until 2054.
This information, along with the aforementioned, is what has led McPherson to this grim prognosis:
"The 40-year lag between emissions of greenhouse gases and consequent rise in global-average temperature suggests our planetary fate was sealed decades ago."
by Iamwhomiam » Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:20 pm
In the atmosphere, methane is a greenhouse gas that, on a relatively short-term time scale, is far more destructive than carbon dioxide (CO2). It is 23 times as powerful as CO2 per molecule on a 100-year time scale and 105 times more potent when it comes to heating the planet on a 20-year time scale - and the Arctic permafrost, onshore and off, is packed with the stuff.
by stillrobertpaulsen » Fri Apr 11, 2014 6:27 pm
Friday, April 11, 2014
Beyond Environmentalism
We're all looking for some way to escape. Some use religion, some use alcohol, some use television. I don't judge, we all pick our poison, most of us have come up with a combination of various diversions to get through the monotony of the daily grind. After 10 years of marriage, Mrs. Paulsen and I have discovered that our favorite method of escape is travel; our favorite means is the road trip. We spent our 10th anniversary motoring through the central part of California, making stops on the coast in San Francisco, the bucolic rolling hillsides (and wineries) of Napa, even steeper hillsides in Nevada City and Grass Valley, underground detritus in Sacramento and relative flatness in Lodi. We also stepped outside the state for the many methods of escape that Reno provides. One of the best damn road trips ever.
One of the side benefits of escaping the confines of Los Angeles County was the opportunity to horde large amounts of plastic bags by simply making purchases at grocery stores. We can't do that where we live anymore. As of January 1 this year in LA County, all supermarkets are forbidden by law from providing free plastic bags. Smaller markets and liquor stores will be forbidden starting July 1. The reason we horde large amounts of plastic bags is that we have our own method for recycling them: every room in our house where we compile garbage, we have small containers lined with plastic bags to collect each week. We've done this for over a decade now and it's saved us a lot of money. So for selfish reasons, we're more than a bit chagrined about this development.
But besides that, I'm looking closer at this change as it plays it in real life and it seems to be the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the whole environmental movement. I grew up here in the 70s, so I've seen the visual and physical proof (smog; what an awful memory) where changes on behalf of environmental concerns can be positive. But whereas that change entailed top-down changes where the needs of the masses outweighed the cost of private commerce, now we see the reverse at play. Back in the 70s, there were no free plastic bags in supermarkets, it was free paper bags that they packed groceries in. Then in the 80s, there was a huge campaign against paper bags on behalf of environmental concerns; too much of our forests being cut down, unnecessary waste, etc. So that was how free plastic bags in grocery stores in California came to be in the first place. But now, according to the law, if you don't bring your own bags to the grocery store, you can buy, at 10 cent a pop, a paper bag. That's just the letter of the law. The reality is most stores I've been to in the county are selling plastic bags at the same price. It's debatable, three months later, just how much cleaner our environment actually is. While there might be less floating plastic bags that I have to worry about dodging so they don't stick to the bottom of my car, I've had to do quite a bit more dodging on foot avoiding excessive piles of dog shit that wasn't as much of a problem when people could pick them up with free plastic bags.
But those details really avoid the larger point at play: we're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This law barely makes a dent where the real issue plastic has on our environment is concerned: the Carbon Crisis. That's my term for the twin threats of Peak Oil and Global Climate Change. The politicians and corporate interests behind this law seem more concerned with the bottom line economically than whether this law actually reduces carbon consumption to any significant degree. It doesn't address how our civilization has been put on a collision course with cataclysm at all. If anything, it only highlights how accurate George Carlin was when he criticized this type of mentality over twenty years ago:
"I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine! The people are fucked! Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great! It's been here 4 1/2 billion years. Do you ever think about the arithmetic? Planet has been here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, 100,000 maybe 200,000? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are! We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away."
This is why we need to move beyond environmentalism, why it has failed as a movement. Not that I have a problem with the self-interest that Carlin lambasts, just that for the most part, it has been narrow. Climate Change is an existential threat! I don't believe that environmentalists on the whole get this point. We know that the right-wing Ditto-heads and their corporate masters don't or won't get this point and take pride in their denial. But environmentalists, for all their good intentions that they're paving the road to hell with, don't get it either. Why? Because existential threats necessitate revolutionary action to counter the threat. And there is nothing revolutionary about environmentalism at this juncture at all!
They've become part of the system, deluding themselves into thinking, as I wrote on Rigorous Intuition, "that we can solve the Carbon Crisis Conundrum and still keep our high-tech Happy Motoring Society intact." As I quoted in my last post from Michael Ruppert, "The planet is being destroyed all around us. Using money to try to address that problem; it's shooting yourself in the foot." But that's exactly the solution most environmentalists have been advocating since the time George Carlin was rolling his eyes at them. We can't afford to abide by that solution anymore.
Why is the situation so dire? I recently re-watched An Inconvenient Truth for the first time in years. It's been eight years since that movie was released in theaters. What I was looking for specifically, after finding out in my last post that the North Pole is warmer now than it has been in 140,000 years, was what Al Gore had to say about the melting of the polar ice caps. About 44 minutes into the film, he said that thanks to global warming, we can look forward to ice-free summers in the Arctic sometime in the next 50 to 75 years. Taking into account that his slide-show presentation was probably filmed sometime in late 2005, that would put his prediction somewhere within the years 2055 to 2080.
We already know in 2014 that this prediction was way, way off. Most likely this is because the melting of polar ice was calculated and extrapolated over a linear time rate. What we have witnessed since then is the Arctic ice cap melting at an exponential rate, which David Wasdell does an excellent job of explaining in this two-part video. There have been a number of new predictions from reputable organizations that the North Pole will first experience an ice-free summer anywhere from as early as 2015 to as late as 2018. I believe it will occur in the summer of 2016. Why then? Because that's when it is predicted to occur by the US Navy. That's right, a study conducted not by some left-wing, socialist, granola-eating hippie collective, but by the Fucking Navy of the United Fucking States of America. Are you paying attention now?!
Here's what I want you to take away from reading this blog post: if during some summer within the next five years you turn on the news and see images of an ice-free Arctic, understand this is visual proof that the human race is fucked. It's really that simple. I'm quite sure that the news will try to soft-sell the real ramifications; depending on which channel you're watching, you may hear talking heads cluck about how it was only ice-free for a few days before it froze over again, or how this will be great for the global economy making summer shipping lanes more efficient. I'm positive there will be a plethora of different distractions to obscure what this unprecedented event really means. What does it really mean? It means we can say with 100% certainty that we have fired the 'clathrate gun.'
The clathrate gun hypothesis is something I first found out about while listening to Guy McPherson present his research a couple months ago in Olympia, Washington. He has stated his belief with "99% certainty" that as a result of industrial civilization, the clathrate gun was fired in 2007, a belief rooted in the scientific research of Malcolm Light on the Gulf Stream transport rate. Basically the concept behind the clathrate gun is that a rise in Arctic sea temperature will trigger the sudden release of methane stored in clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost initiating runaway climate change. Once the Arctic ice is gone, the solar energy that formerly went into heating up the ice will now be heating up the water. The methane clathrates are located in shallow sea beds. It logically follows that once the Arctic ice cap melts, runaway climate change via massive methane release is inevitable.
How bad could runaway climate change be? Here's some perspective: we have already burned 226 gigatons of carbon dioxide since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Just this greenhouse gas alone has driven atmospheric CO2 to 402ppm, the highest recorded concentration in 800,000 years! Arctic Ocean methane is equivalent to anywhere between 1,000 to 10,000 gigatons. Since only a minor increase in temperature is sufficient to trigger a methane release, a 50 gigaton "burp" of methane is highly possible at any time between 2015 and 2025. Because methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, that would have the strength of roughly 1,250 gigatons of carbon dioxide. What would that translate to for an increase of global average temperature? 4 degrees C above baseline by 2030. No humans have ever lived on Earth at 3.5 C above baseline (global average temperature at the start of the Industrial Revolution). This doesn't mean we roast to death. But even if the "burp" turns out to be a wet fart, at 2-3 C above baseline, we lose all ocean photoplankton and therefore most ocean life. Perhaps this is what the IPCC is alluding to in their latest report when they said, “models based on current agricultural systems suggest large negative impacts on agricultural productivity and substantial risks to global food production and security.” Translation: we may run out of food.
So what's my point? Is this just a morbid personal exercise in facing mortality, perhaps exacerbated by the upcoming anniversary of my father's passing? I can't discount that influence, but in a positive way - that I have more clarity and courage in areas I previously refused to explore. Nobody can say for certain whether the prospect of runaway climate change means we will be one of the species to take an exit bow in this Sixth Great Extinction that is currently taking place without a runaway event. But I think it's safe to say this is a situation beyond plastic bags, carbon footprints, or any of the other outer trappings of building a shiny new Green Economy right on top of the rotting vestiges of the old one. Until environmentalism unites behind a plan to change the way money works so that our economic infrastructure represents energy instead of debt, change our modes of production so that carbon consumption is effectively eradicated, and find a way to decommision the 447 existing nuclear power plants within a decade so they don't melt down if civilization breaks down, the movement isn't part of the solution, it's part of the problem. The problem is the System. Saving humanity requires proactively de-industrializing civilization before a suicidal devolution does the job for us. That means destroying the System. Revolution. You've heard the song before.
Oh...you want to see my plan? That's a post for another day.
by bardobailey » Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:11 pm
by justdrew » Fri Apr 11, 2014 8:59 pm
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