Global Warming Study Warns of Vanishing Climates

By the end of the century up to two fifths of the land surface of the Earth will have a hotter climate unlike anything that currently exists, according to a study that predicts the effects of global warming on local and regional climates. And in the worst case scenario, the climatic conditions on another 48% of the land surface will no longer exist on the planet at all.The changes - which will have a devastating affect on biodiversity hotspots such as the Amazonian and Indonesian rainforests - will wipe out numerous species that are unable to move to stay within their preferred climate range. These species will either have to evolve rapidly or die out.

“There is a real problem for conservation biologists,” said the lead author, John Williams, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “How do you conserve the biological diversity of these entire systems if the physical environment is changing and potentially disappearing?”

Studies already suggest that the ranges of species are shifting towards the poles at around six kilometers a decade, but what will happen when the rate of change intensifies?

His team used emissions scenarios set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the international scientific group that advises policymakers - to predict where changes in temperature and precipitation will occur.

As is already happening, the analysis predicts that as the planet warms climate zones will move north and south towards the poles. To work out the significance of these changes, the team compared them with the climate variation that occurs naturally. They attach greater weight to changes in regions that are relatively stable. This suggests that some of the worst impacts will happen in tropical and subtropical regions as they shift to new climatic conditions not currently seen.

“That’s one of the things that really surprised us,” said Professor Williams. “The tropics have very little variability from year to year in temperature, they are a very stable climatic zone. So species that live in those climates expect a limited degree of variability.” Other studies have suggested that the Amazon basin, an extremely biologically rich region, will be at increased risk of forest fires because of its hotter and dryer climate.

“One of the things that comes from our paper is that because the species that live in the tropics are adapted or have evolved for a reduced range of variability, it may be that a two to three degree temperature change in the tropics may be more significant than say a five to eight degree change in high latitudes,” he added.

Up to now, much of the focus of the impact of global warming has been on polar regions because this is where the climate is changing fastest.” At the other end of the scale are climatic regions that will be lost from the planet altogether.

The climate model predicts that these disappearing climates will be lost mainly from tropical mountains and the edges of continents nearest the poles.

As the Earth warms, these climate regions simply have nowhere to shift to. Some of the losers are the tropical Andes, the African Rift mountains, the Zambian and Angolan highlands, the South African Cape region, south-east Australia, parts of the Himalayas and the Arctic.

The team reports in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that by 2100, between 12% and 39% of the land surface of the Earth will have a new climate, while the combination of climatic conditions on 10%-48% of the planet will have disappeared altogether. This is using one of the IPCC’s business-as-usual global development scenarios. Using a different scenario that assumes more environmentally friendly development, the corresponding predictions are 4% to 20%.

The true effect on species may be more than these numbers suggest, though, because even if a climate still exists somewhere, it is no use unless a species can migrate fast enough to follow it as it shifts. One study published in 2004 predicted that 15% to 37% of species could be driven extinct between now and 2050 assuming moderate climate warming. Globally, this would mean the loss of more than 1 million species.

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24 Comments so far

ricg March 27th, 2007 2:43 pm

Mass extinction is heading our way and we’re too stupid to survive it.

Plants and animals have an excuse for going extinct due to climate. They don’t know what the hell’s going on.

We know. We do nothing. That makes us the stupidest species on the face of the earth.

Until we’re not.

Rune March 27th, 2007 3:00 pm

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that cultures that directly and indirectly caused the die off of other cultures and species in the pursuit of “progress” would eventually cause their own die off. It’s very sad, though.

“There are no… limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn’t a risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs.”
-Lawrence H. Summers, World Bank chief economist, Nov 10, 1991.

And millions of people still believe that stuff, even now. Do us all a favor: don’t sit quietly when they preach such nonsense. Speak the truth. It’s late, but not too late. Yet.

Jaded Prole March 27th, 2007 3:32 pm

Humans are adaptable. Human systems are not. This system will collapse because of eocnomic fragility in the face of such changes. We need to be building the next cooperative non-capital based system and doing what we can to preserve civilization beyond the collapse of the inane jugernaut of global capitalism.

rc March 27th, 2007 3:32 pm

In reading Tim Flannery’s book, The Weather Makers, he made it clear that if we stick w/ business as usual, also known as “Bush’s energy plan” we can kiss 60% of plant and animal species goodbye, permanently, by 2100. If we change course now, move quickly away from gas, oil sands, and coal, we’ll only lose 20% of animal and plant species by 2100. Clearly a 20% loss of biodiversity is much preferable to a 60% loss. In fact, a 60% loss might be the beginning of the end for the human species. Once these feedback loops kick in thanks to humans’ fossil fuel binging, the temperature rises could be downright cataclysmic… as in 8 degrees Celsius hotter. Clathrates, which store many gigatons of methane in a frozen state, could easily be unleashed once things heat up to that degree. Time for massive CO2 “requestration.” My term for growing millions of tons of CO2-rich algae & kelp and pumping it down into the holes in the ground left by mines and oil wells.

old goat March 27th, 2007 3:47 pm

http://www.socioambiental.org/e/

In Brazil the Instituto Socioambiental tracks not only the breaking environmental news but also the struggle of indigenous people already demonstrating nationwide because of the desctruction being wreaked on their traditional territories. The institute needs financial support and we need to start paying very close attention! Tour the site and help ém out!

stepfour March 27th, 2007 4:25 pm

How do you tell your kids about this, and when should your grandkids find out? It’s the cruel joke of the 21st century that it may also be the last one.

I can detect in conversations with my kids a tactful avoidance of topics associated with the health of the planet or the prospects for our progeny. They try to laugh off climate change, which has already brought considerable misery to humanity and promises much, much more. They seem to be sanguine about the future of the world economy, whose prospects seem bleak. As for the national identity, they accept it as permanently degraded.

They must be wondering, as I am, how things will be when their kids and grandkids grow up. If, as is forecast with some confidence, disease is rife, food is short, and disaster stalks every community 50 years from now, they might not be in a mood to celebrate humanity or entertain serious hopes for the future. I look at my grandbabies and I wonder where their minds will be focused when they reach my time of life. Will their kids be safe and warm? Will they be as worried as I am? More worried? All dead?

I confess I’m a mess over this. I can hardly contemplate the world our children and grandchildren will live in. My mind takes refuge in the idea that they will be part of a not altogether hopeless effort to save our species from catastrophe. Not altogether hopeless, even as my lifetime has so far been a losing battle against human nature, which seems to obey, inexorably, the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency to chaos. Can my grandchildren and their grandchildren reverse a destructive process that has come so far?

Some have their hearts set on an apocalypse, as the Byzantine scribes forecast centuries ago. According to myth, a privileged few will be transported to a better place than this, and the rest will perish. The scribes were thinking flood and pestilence and had no idea that people could or would bring such a catastrophe on themselves. Any way you cut it, I don’t like this prospect and I consider it unchristian, unnatural, and downright un-American to believe that Armageddon solves the problem of survival in a fouled biosphere. People who profess a belief in the “end-times” should be deported to Antartica, where they’ve already arrived.

The cruel irony of our situation is that it cannot improve without discussion and thought. As it happens, it can’t be discussed or thought about without painful reflection. I can’t talk about it with my kids, and they can’t talk about it among themselves because their kids might hear, and the leaders can never talk about it, and they all have to solve it somehow, even amid a conspiracy of silence.

I’m not looking for a way to relieve my personal distress here. I can never do that. I just want to make sure I will have done all that I could have done to untangle this conundrum and provide a future for my survivors.

simonhhh March 27th, 2007 4:29 pm

“Bye bye human race, you blew it”.

The reality is even if carbon emissions were theoretically remained at 2007 levels, by 2050 global temp would increase by 2-3 degrees centigrade. Thats Centigrade not Fahrenheit.
Global warming is currently a run away train. It’s just now a question of what version of HELL on earth do you fancy. Global warming /Climate change is happening MUCH faster than any administration/bureaucratic official even understands/knows or is in DENIAL ABOUT!!!!
Bush and Cheney et al are like dinosaurs, stuck in the last century. Trouble is they taking the whole planet with them… i.e. douwn the toilet!!!
Just at a time when American Administration could be taking a WORLD Leadership role to reign in real culprits like China and India; Bush et al are STUPIDLY mesmirised by their own bullshit fighting ISLAMO FASCISTS…a term which defies any historical or academic basis or fact….

jjpeter March 27th, 2007 4:50 pm

The bees are diappearing, dying, without them crops will be infertle, and all that feeds off of them will curl, and turn to dust, in the hot winds.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B1FF8355A0C748EDDAB0894DF404482

We have less time then we know.

Jaded Prole March 27th, 2007 5:28 pm

The fossil record will clearly show our shortsighted hubris and the folly of capitalism.

Jeremy Wells March 27th, 2007 6:20 pm

SOCIALISM FOR SURVIVAL!

Human life and progress is possible only in a world that is ecologically sustainable and in which the global economy is democratically based to provide for universal human needs.

For centuries capitalist greed has been the motivating force behind slavery, racism, colonialism, and world wars. Today, with global warming, the U.S. corporate ruling elite threatens to destroy the entire planet to maximize greed and profit for itself. The natural and economic resources essential to the vast majority of peoples for survival are being exploited and privatized for the greed and profit of a few.

The 500 year reign of barbaric capitalism must end now if humanity is to survive this century.

Nietzsche March 27th, 2007 6:34 pm

I am having a very hard time feeling sorry for the human race.

Rune March 27th, 2007 7:52 pm

I think you made that quite clear in “Human, all too Human,” Nietzsche.

Com_n_sense March 27th, 2007 8:00 pm

From early on I figured we were December’s Children. I’ve had nothing but confirmation of this since.

If, and this is a big “if”, mankind is to regain any sense of Heaven on Earth, it will be with the maybe 1% of people that survive the upheaval. And believe this - it will come fast and hard. The tipping point could be anything, the fabric of our existence is worn thin and stretched in every direction. The few that may survive will have to rebuild without fossil fuels.

So never again, unless they discover another way,(highly unlikely) mankind will never fly again, of cover great distances faster than animal power will take them.

Robert Settgast March 27th, 2007 8:27 pm

It is remarkable that it took the Al Gore’s documentary “Inconvenient Truth”, and now the polar bear demise and the recent conclusions from the international scientific community, to alert many to the impending dangers from global warming–which has been obvious to anyone who had made even minor efforts to be informed. The evidence linking carbon pollution to warming is as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by the scientific community, many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists, and chronicled in the press for years.

The dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data used by this administration to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has also been apparent. The gullibility of so many who are influanced by them is more alarming than the scientific manipulation itself.

Contrary to their assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our involvement, China & India could then be compelled to join the rest of the developed world.

Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.

The environmental and social damage from our indifference to (and even denial of) carbon pollution and its effects can only worsen if we allow these destructive policies of this reckless and unlearned president and his financial supporters to continue.

worddancer March 28th, 2007 12:31 am

‘Til human voices wake us/And we drown.’

macchendra March 28th, 2007 12:54 am

We buy and sell, even if we only sell our labor.

We can buy and sell collectively, and make the market conform to our democratic will.

Every day that we do not do this, we perpetuate our eventual demise.

We do not need a law to permit us to do this. We can do this now.

pangolin March 28th, 2007 3:28 am

As a US citizen, currently disabled, it is literally a case of watching the world burn slowly and being unable to walk away from the fire. There is no place I can go where my life will not be ruled by my ability to produce cash for goods.

The poor do not have the option of purchasing Prius to get their kids and groceries to and fro. If they are lucky they live within reasonable bicycling distance of whatever jobs are available or on a transit line.

We live in the housing we can afford, owned by the wealthy. They aren’t about to spend THEIR money installing solar panels and energy saving heating systems for US. Likewise for most of us organic food is a luxury for the well off; doubling our grocery bill is NOT an option.

Until the government gets off it’s Lexus-hybrid cushioned ass and starts improving conditions for all of it’s people there won’t be the changes needed to meet any useful CO2 reduction goals.

Climate change is a problem for every person. The solution should include every person.

karlof1 March 28th, 2007 3:28 am

There’s a group called the Post Carbon Institute, http://www.postcarbon.org/ that’s trying to organize macchendra’s suggestions, and there are other organizations besides them–many associated with Peak Oil.

As for telling your children, tell them the unvarnished truth. I have; it works. Another step to take albeit hard to do in our atomized society is to gather-in your extended family and establish a family based collective. Even if geographically disparate, it’s possible to organize around an extended family trust.

Becoming an example for others to emulate is perhaps the best way to be proactive. One of the first steps is to abandon as much of the industrial food chain as possible–no fastfood, no Starbucks, no CAFO meats, no megamile foodstuffs. As Michael Pollan suggests, vote with your fork. There’s much that can be done, and your efforts puts money in your pocket that would otherwise go to a corporation and futher Empire.

Jaded Prole March 28th, 2007 9:24 am

Glaucus, delusional optimism and denial feel better than reality don’t they?

GBubbles March 28th, 2007 9:43 am

This old lady lives in a retirement home and has a new greatgrandchild on the way. I’d love to be able to pretend it will all be okay, and my children don’t want me to frighten the younger ones, so how do I attempt to make a difference? We recycle, but drastic measures seem out of our reach here on our little island.

simonhhh March 28th, 2007 10:07 am

Glaucus’s delusional dreaming in “a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution”.

Please don’t take this personal Glaucus, but try expanding your research and empirical data base to include the last 450,000 to 700,000 years as a opposed to a SLIGHTLY narrow perspective of 40 to 150 years found in your source.

Also check who is funding directly or indirectly the “so called” research. You may be astonished to find the OIL or COAL industry LURKING!!!!

A good example being Dr Fred Singer indirectly funded by tobacco and oil interests designed to speciously debunk current peer reviewed research. For a cursory look: http://www.answers.com/Dr%20Fred%20Singer

donaldcurrie March 28th, 2007 11:42 am

We can clearly predict that our primitive instinctive drive for acquisition and conflict will destroy our human world in the not too distant future because we are powerless to change. We will suffocate in our own waste. We can look at this as quite an accomplishment; the only living species to destroy itself. Collectively man worships and blindly follows their generals and distrusts their wisemen. Power reigns over wisdom. Fortunately when we are gone, the animals and insects that remain will take this world back, the empty cities will remain as silent monuments to our misdeeds, life will return to the seas, snow to the mountain tops, and the forests and plains will be green again.

rc March 28th, 2007 7:27 pm

Why isn’t there a 24 hour news channel dedicated to explaining the enormity of the problem and galvanizing humanity around working cooperatively to find a solution?

Clearly with each passing day, more and more people are seeing that we are on the Titanic and the Titanic is about to hit…and then melt…the icebergs.

Simple facts could be presented to the masses to increase their woefully inadequate knowledge around the problem of climate change and global warming. For example, CO2 produced by our cars and power plants will exist in the earth’s atmosphere for 25-100 years.

Albedo, which determines the amount of sunlight a substance can reflect back into space, is key to understanding the power of positive feedback loops. Ice/Snow reflects 90% of the sunlight that hits it. Water absorbs 90% of the sunlight (and heat) and only reflects 10%.

If people got a steady diet of these facts and the studies coming out almost daily about the continued degradation of planet earth, perhaps we could get Congress and the next President to take bold steps to prevent the “hot state” that Gaia discover James Lovelock talks about in his book “Revenge of Gaia.” It’s time to deploy the space mirrors and aerosol-making ships that John Natham recommends we use to buy ourselves some time to get off our addiction to coal, oil, oil sands, and natural gas.

simonhhh March 30th, 2007 7:58 am

Glaucus

The Stern Report, a consensus among 2500 leading World Scientific Climatalogical community and CSIRO Australian Report are not wrong

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT…..

Australia’s climate is undergoing severe climate change ie increasing of severe DROUGHT over the last 15 to 20 years!

Some Polynesian Island are currently are being subsumed by the Pacific Ocean as sea levels rise!

America just had category 5 Katrina. Whats unusual here is that it built to that level 5 in under only 150 to 200 kilometers instead of the usual 500 to 750 kilometers ie. increased ocean temperatures

Promoting misleading or disingenuous information is patently unethical to say the least…..

ricg March 27th, 2007 2:43 pm

Mass extinction is heading our way and we’re too stupid to survive it.

Plants and animals have an excuse for going extinct due to climate. They don’t know what the hell’s going on.

We know. We do nothing. That makes us the stupidest species on the face of the earth.

Until we’re not.
Rune March 27th, 2007 3:00 pm

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that cultures that directly and indirectly caused the die off of other cultures and species in the pursuit of “progress” would eventually cause their own die off. It’s very sad, though.

“There are no… limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn’t a risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs.”
-Lawrence H. Summers, World Bank chief economist, Nov 10, 1991.

And millions of people still believe that stuff, even now. Do us all a favor: don’t sit quietly when they preach such nonsense. Speak the truth. It’s late, but not too late. Yet.
Jaded Prole March 27th, 2007 3:32 pm

Humans are adaptable. Human systems are not. This system will collapse because of eocnomic fragility in the face of such changes. We need to be building the next cooperative non-capital based system and doing what we can to preserve civilization beyond the collapse of the inane jugernaut of global capitalism.
rc March 27th, 2007 3:32 pm

In reading Tim Flannery’s book, The Weather Makers, he made it clear that if we stick w/ business as usual, also known as “Bush’s energy plan” we can kiss 60% of plant and animal species goodbye, permanently, by 2100. If we change course now, move quickly away from gas, oil sands, and coal, we’ll only lose 20% of animal and plant species by 2100. Clearly a 20% loss of biodiversity is much preferable to a 60% loss. In fact, a 60% loss might be the beginning of the end for the human species. Once these feedback loops kick in thanks to humans’ fossil fuel binging, the temperature rises could be downright cataclysmic… as in 8 degrees Celsius hotter. Clathrates, which store many gigatons of methane in a frozen state, could easily be unleashed once things heat up to that degree. Time for massive CO2 “requestration.” My term for growing millions of tons of CO2-rich algae & kelp and pumping it down into the holes in the ground left by mines and oil wells.
old goat March 27th, 2007 3:47 pm

http://www.socioambiental.org/e/

In Brazil the Instituto Socioambiental tracks not only the breaking environmental news but also the struggle of indigenous people already demonstrating nationwide because of the desctruction being wreaked on their traditional territories. The institute needs financial support and we need to start paying very close attention! Tour the site and help ém out!
stepfour March 27th, 2007 4:25 pm

How do you tell your kids about this, and when should your grandkids find out? It’s the cruel joke of the 21st century that it may also be the last one.

I can detect in conversations with my kids a tactful avoidance of topics associated with the health of the planet or the prospects for our progeny. They try to laugh off climate change, which has already brought considerable misery to humanity and promises much, much more. They seem to be sanguine about the future of the world economy, whose prospects seem bleak. As for the national identity, they accept it as permanently degraded.

They must be wondering, as I am, how things will be when their kids and grandkids grow up. If, as is forecast with some confidence, disease is rife, food is short, and disaster stalks every community 50 years from now, they might not be in a mood to celebrate humanity or entertain serious hopes for the future. I look at my grandbabies and I wonder where their minds will be focused when they reach my time of life. Will their kids be safe and warm? Will they be as worried as I am? More worried? All dead?

I confess I’m a mess over this. I can hardly contemplate the world our children and grandchildren will live in. My mind takes refuge in the idea that they will be part of a not altogether hopeless effort to save our species from catastrophe. Not altogether hopeless, even as my lifetime has so far been a losing battle against human nature, which seems to obey, inexorably, the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency to chaos. Can my grandchildren and their grandchildren reverse a destructive process that has come so far?

Some have their hearts set on an apocalypse, as the Byzantine scribes forecast centuries ago. According to myth, a privileged few will be transported to a better place than this, and the rest will perish. The scribes were thinking flood and pestilence and had no idea that people could or would bring such a catastrophe on themselves. Any way you cut it, I don’t like this prospect and I consider it unchristian, unnatural, and downright un-American to believe that Armageddon solves the problem of survival in a fouled biosphere. People who profess a belief in the “end-times” should be deported to Antartica, where they’ve already arrived.

The cruel irony of our situation is that it cannot improve without discussion and thought. As it happens, it can’t be discussed or thought about without painful reflection. I can’t talk about it with my kids, and they can’t talk about it among themselves because their kids might hear, and the leaders can never talk about it, and they all have to solve it somehow, even amid a conspiracy of silence.

I’m not looking for a way to relieve my personal distress here. I can never do that. I just want to make sure I will have done all that I could have done to untangle this conundrum and provide a future for my survivors.
simonhhh March 27th, 2007 4:29 pm

“Bye bye human race, you blew it”.

The reality is even if carbon emissions were theoretically remained at 2007 levels, by 2050 global temp would increase by 2-3 degrees centigrade. Thats Centigrade not Fahrenheit.
Global warming is currently a run away train. It’s just now a question of what version of HELL on earth do you fancy. Global warming /Climate change is happening MUCH faster than any administration/bureaucratic official even understands/knows or is in DENIAL ABOUT!!!!
Bush and Cheney et al are like dinosaurs, stuck in the last century. Trouble is they taking the whole planet with them… i.e. douwn the toilet!!!
Just at a time when American Administration could be taking a WORLD Leadership role to reign in real culprits like China and India; Bush et al are STUPIDLY mesmirised by their own bullshit fighting ISLAMO FASCISTS…a term which defies any historical or academic basis or fact….
jjpeter March 27th, 2007 4:50 pm

The bees are diappearing, dying, without them crops will be infertle, and all that feeds off of them will curl, and turn to dust, in the hot winds.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B1FF8355A0C748EDDAB0894DF404482

We have less time then we know.
Jaded Prole March 27th, 2007 5:28 pm

The fossil record will clearly show our shortsighted hubris and the folly of capitalism.
Jeremy Wells March 27th, 2007 6:20 pm

SOCIALISM FOR SURVIVAL!

Human life and progress is possible only in a world that is ecologically sustainable and in which the global economy is democratically based to provide for universal human needs.

For centuries capitalist greed has been the motivating force behind slavery, racism, colonialism, and world wars. Today, with global warming, the U.S. corporate ruling elite threatens to destroy the entire planet to maximize greed and profit for itself. The natural and economic resources essential to the vast majority of peoples for survival are being exploited and privatized for the greed and profit of a few.

The 500 year reign of barbaric capitalism must end now if humanity is to survive this century.
Nietzsche March 27th, 2007 6:34 pm

I am having a very hard time feeling sorry for the human race.
Rune March 27th, 2007 7:52 pm

I think you made that quite clear in “Human, all too Human,” Nietzsche.
Com_n_sense March 27th, 2007 8:00 pm

From early on I figured we were December’s Children. I’ve had nothing but confirmation of this since.

If, and this is a big “if”, mankind is to regain any sense of Heaven on Earth, it will be with the maybe 1% of people that survive the upheaval. And believe this - it will come fast and hard. The tipping point could be anything, the fabric of our existence is worn thin and stretched in every direction. The few that may survive will have to rebuild without fossil fuels.

So never again, unless they discover another way,(highly unlikely) mankind will never fly again, of cover great distances faster than animal power will take them.
Robert Settgast March 27th, 2007 8:27 pm

It is remarkable that it took the Al Gore’s documentary “Inconvenient Truth”, and now the polar bear demise and the recent conclusions from the international scientific community, to alert many to the impending dangers from global warming–which has been obvious to anyone who had made even minor efforts to be informed. The evidence linking carbon pollution to warming is as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by the scientific community, many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists, and chronicled in the press for years.

The dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data used by this administration to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has also been apparent. The gullibility of so many who are influanced by them is more alarming than the scientific manipulation itself.

Contrary to their assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our involvement, China & India could then be compelled to join the rest of the developed world.

Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.

The environmental and social damage from our indifference to (and even denial of) carbon pollution and its effects can only worsen if we allow these destructive policies of this reckless and unlearned president and his financial supporters to continue.
worddancer March 28th, 2007 12:31 am

‘Til human voices wake us/And we drown.’
macchendra March 28th, 2007 12:54 am

We buy and sell, even if we only sell our labor.

We can buy and sell collectively, and make the market conform to our democratic will.

Every day that we do not do this, we perpetuate our eventual demise.

We do not need a law to permit us to do this. We can do this now.
pangolin March 28th, 2007 3:28 am

As a US citizen, currently disabled, it is literally a case of watching the world burn slowly and being unable to walk away from the fire. There is no place I can go where my life will not be ruled by my ability to produce cash for goods.

The poor do not have the option of purchasing Prius to get their kids and groceries to and fro. If they are lucky they live within reasonable bicycling distance of whatever jobs are available or on a transit line.

We live in the housing we can afford, owned by the wealthy. They aren’t about to spend THEIR money installing solar panels and energy saving heating systems for US. Likewise for most of us organic food is a luxury for the well off; doubling our grocery bill is NOT an option.

Until the government gets off it’s Lexus-hybrid cushioned ass and starts improving conditions for all of it’s people there won’t be the changes needed to meet any useful CO2 reduction goals.

Climate change is a problem for every person. The solution should include every person.
karlof1 March 28th, 2007 3:28 am

There’s a group called the Post Carbon Institute, http://www.postcarbon.org/ that’s trying to organize macchendra’s suggestions, and there are other organizations besides them–many associated with Peak Oil.

As for telling your children, tell them the unvarnished truth. I have; it works. Another step to take albeit hard to do in our atomized society is to gather-in your extended family and establish a family based collective. Even if geographically disparate, it’s possible to organize around an extended family trust.

Becoming an example for others to emulate is perhaps the best way to be proactive. One of the first steps is to abandon as much of the industrial food chain as possible–no fastfood, no Starbucks, no CAFO meats, no megamile foodstuffs. As Michael Pollan suggests, vote with your fork. There’s much that can be done, and your efforts puts money in your pocket that would otherwise go to a corporation and futher Empire.
Jaded Prole March 28th, 2007 9:24 am

Glaucus, delusional optimism and denial feel better than reality don’t they?
GBubbles March 28th, 2007 9:43 am

This old lady lives in a retirement home and has a new greatgrandchild on the way. I’d love to be able to pretend it will all be okay, and my children don’t want me to frighten the younger ones, so how do I attempt to make a difference? We recycle, but drastic measures seem out of our reach here on our little island.
simonhhh March 28th, 2007 10:07 am

Glaucus’s delusional dreaming in “a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution”.

Please don’t take this personal Glaucus, but try expanding your research and empirical data base to include the last 450,000 to 700,000 years as a opposed to a SLIGHTLY narrow perspective of 40 to 150 years found in your source.

Also check who is funding directly or indirectly the “so called” research. You may be astonished to find the OIL or COAL industry LURKING!!!!

A good example being Dr Fred Singer indirectly funded by tobacco and oil interests designed to speciously debunk current peer reviewed research. For a cursory look: http://www.answers.com/Dr%20Fred%20Singer
donaldcurrie March 28th, 2007 11:42 am

We can clearly predict that our primitive instinctive drive for acquisition and conflict will destroy our human world in the not too distant future because we are powerless to change. We will suffocate in our own waste. We can look at this as quite an accomplishment; the only living species to destroy itself. Collectively man worships and blindly follows their generals and distrusts their wisemen. Power reigns over wisdom. Fortunately when we are gone, the animals and insects that remain will take this world back, the empty cities will remain as silent monuments to our misdeeds, life will return to the seas, snow to the mountain tops, and the forests and plains will be green again.
rc March 28th, 2007 7:27 pm

Why isn’t there a 24 hour news channel dedicated to explaining the enormity of the problem and galvanizing humanity around working cooperatively to find a solution?

Clearly with each passing day, more and more people are seeing that we are on the Titanic and the Titanic is about to hit…and then melt…the icebergs.

Simple facts could be presented to the masses to increase their woefully inadequate knowledge around the problem of climate change and global warming. For example, CO2 produced by our cars and power plants will exist in the earth’s atmosphere for 25-100 years.

Albedo, which determines the amount of sunlight a substance can reflect back into space, is key to understanding the power of positive feedback loops. Ice/Snow reflects 90% of the sunlight that hits it. Water absorbs 90% of the sunlight (and heat) and only reflects 10%.

If people got a steady diet of these facts and the studies coming out almost daily about the continued degradation of planet earth, perhaps we could get Congress and the next President to take bold steps to prevent the “hot state” that Gaia discover James Lovelock talks about in his book “Revenge of Gaia.” It’s time to deploy the space mirrors and aerosol-making ships that John Natham recommends we use to buy ourselves some time to get off our addiction to coal, oil, oil sands, and natural gas.
simonhhh March 30th, 2007 7:58 am

Glaucus

The Stern Report, a consensus among 2500 leading World Scientific Climatalogical community and CSIRO Australian Report are not wrong

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT…..

Australia’s climate is undergoing severe climate change ie increasing of severe DROUGHT over the last 15 to 20 years!

Some Polynesian Island are currently are being subsumed by the Pacific Ocean as sea levels rise!

America just had category 5 Katrina. Whats unusual here is that it built to that level 5 in under only 150 to 200 kilometers instead of the usual 500 to 750 kilometers ie. increased ocean temperatures

Promoting misleading or disingenuous information is patently unethical to say the least…..

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