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TechnoratiBROOKLIN, Canada - The hot breath of global warming has now touched some of the coldest northern regions of world, turning the frozen landscape into mush as temperatures soar 15 degrees C. above normal.
Entire hillsides, sometimes more than a kilometre long, simply let go and slid like a vast green carpet into valleys and rivers on Melville Island in Canada's northwest Arctic region of Nunavut this summer, says Scott Lamoureux of Queens University in Canada and leader of one the of International Polar Year projects.
"The entire landscape is on the move, it was very difficult to find any slopes that were unaltered," said Lamoureux, who led a scientific expedition to the remote and uninhabited island.
The topography and ecology of Melville Island is rapidly being rearranged by climate change.
"Every day it looked different," he told IPS. "This is a permanent change."
Normally Melville Island's 42,500 sq kms are locked in sea ice all year round, as it is part of the high region that has been relatively unaffected by the dramatic declines in Arctic sea ice over the past decade. Until this year, that is. This summer, southern parts of the island were free of sea ice, Lamoureux told IPS. He has led expeditions to the island every year since 2003.
On land at Mould Bay on the island's northwest side, his research team measured record-shattering temperatures of between 15 to 22 degrees C in July. Until then, the normal July average temperature had been between 4 and 5 degrees C.
The extraordinary heat thawed the tundra permafrost -- permanently frozen ground -- to depths of more than a metre, he said. At that depth, there is mostly ice and when it melts, it destabilises the thin, top layer of plants and soil that has patiently built up over thousands of years.
Enormous amounts of water and sediments are being discharged into rivers, lakes and oceans. Studies are underway to determine the impact on birds, fish, musk oxen and other creatures that live there in the summer. Given the extent of the changes, there is little doubt there will be significant ecological impacts, he said.
The record low level of sea ice in the entire Arctic Ocean will also change regional and even global weather patterns. Much more snow will fall in the Arctic due to the increased moisture from the increased amounts of open water. All that water is also dark and heat-absorbing instead of sunlight-reflecting ice, so the region gets warmer, melting more ice in what is a strong positive feedback loop.
Other parts of the Arctic region have already changed dramatically in the past 50 years.
"There are trees and lawns in Nome (Alaska) now," said Patricia Cochran, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.
"I never thought I'd see trees growing on the tundra," Cochran said about her hometown, which lies on the Bering Sea and was once too cold for trees to grow.
"Beavers are overrunning the area now that there is food for them. They are even in Barrow, north of the Arctic Circle," she told IPS from her office in Anchorage.
The tundra is also melting, resulting in coffins disturbingly popping out of the ground in graveyards, roads crumbling and giant sink holes opening up everywhere, including in some towns, she said.
Every summer brings plants, animals, birds and insects that no one has seen before. Dragonflies and turtles now roam the lands that had been too icy for tens of thousands of years.
"Everyone living here has seen the changes," Cochran said.
And there are more changes to come even if politicians and corporate CEOs stop pretending to act and actually curb emissions of greenhouse gases.
"The Arctic Ocean will be ice free in the summer, it's just a matter of how soon," said Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences in the University of Victoria, Canada.
A new study led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration this week revealed that the Arctic's thick, year-round sea ice cover declined 2.6 million square kilometres beyond the summer average minimum since satellites started measurements in 1979. That's about the size of the province of Ontario.
"That decline is nothing short of stunning," Weaver told IPS.
It's also a permanent decline because while the ice will re-form over the six-month-long winter when there is no sunlight, it will be much thinner and likely to melt quickly next summer, he said.
Because Arctic sea ice is floating, the melting will not affect sea levels but it will "wreak absolute havoc on Arctic ecosystems".
The rapid meltdown is pushing the upper end of the climate experts' projections, he said, noting that new research shows that change in the Arctic could happen abruptly. In other words, the worst case scenarios and beyond may come to pass. They may even be on their way right now.
Oil and gas exploration may one day reach remote Meville Island if there's a summer ice-free path because of the extensive natural gas and oil reserves there, said Lamoureux.
Burning such fossil fuels is the major reason why the Arctic is losing ice. Scientists and native people note that it would be more than ironic should those emissions facilitate the extraction of even more fossil fuels with which to further warm our overheating global greenhouse.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
45 Comments so far
Show AllAny other real scientists out there? Does anyone wonder how trees could be growing on the tundra? Hint: trees make seeds. When conditions are right, the seeds sprout. Voila, tree.
Beavers are moving into new areas to take advantage of these new trees. Where did these beavers come from? Did they take a chartered flight from LA in the style of ALGore or Arianna Huffingpuff? No, the beavers were there all along, just in smaller numbers. Ditto the turtles. The insects and the birds are able to move about more quickly. They have wings.
All these animals and plants are just showing us how adaptable life is. This is a good thing, not something to be feared or futilely fought.
Permafrost melts. What is permafrost? It is soil, that is frozen. When did it become soil? The last time it was warm enough, and long enough to produce soil (a very slow process).
Does anyone with a brain see that a little less ice and a few more plants and animals in the Arctic might be a good thing, a normal thing?
You need to learn some critical thinking skills here, folks.
Realist out.
Captmorgan - checkout mayanmajix.com for extensive info - NB
2012 is disinfo. Actually ends on 28 Oct 2011. The period feb 2011 to this enddate is most transitional. At this enddate something is supposed to happen with time.
Generally, I think its helpful if people make their spiritual/religous life a priority, whatever form it takes, aswell as doing what they can consumerwise.
It was suggested that we avoid asides and address the issue here. Good point.
If there is anyone out there with 1 acre plus interested in a cheap, risk-free way to store significant amounts of carbon, please click on my hyperlink and contact me. Let's stop waiting for "someone" to do "something" and just get it done.
Sulisgyan :
CO2 is not heavier than air. CO2 is a component of air, along with nitrogen, oxygen and other gases.
What you meant to say was that CO2 is heavier ( has a greater molecular weight) than nitrogen and oxygen, which comprise 99% of air.
Yes, I know there are 62,867,893 pages on the Internet that say that CO2 is heavier than air.
Just for the record' CO2 is one and one half times as heavy as air'
To vaccinate or not to vaccinate, how much to vaccinate and when, is a very difficult decision between two sets of fear for each and any parent. Some of us advocate a parents' right to choose, based on our deepest observations and care about our child's overall condition, it does not mean that we are irresponsible, more that we spend much money on reading everything we can and trying to get a balanced view.
Thank you souixrose and Tom3birds. I agree that compassion, empathy, understanding and creating community and collaboration allows us the freedom to get creative and collective sane as well as to move beyond the blame and 'victimology' culture.
Here in Africa, we are already by far the global champions with 40 or so countries at the top of the league table for minimal carbon emission living. 800 million people getting through each day with most countries at about 0.2-0.5 MT/Carbon per capita per annum, with a continental average of 1.7 MT/C per capita when you add in South Africa, Libya, Angola, Nigeria etc. Compared this with Europe's @7.00Mt/Carbon and America and China right down at the bottom of the chart as the dirtiest and most irresponsible countries of all. And in Africa, even though we are top of the league, we now also need full support from those messing up, in order to be the most innovative with the least resources, as we face the greatest vulnerability from the changing rainfall patterns because almost all agriculture and food production is rainfed.
In Kenya we generate 70% hydroelectric power and 13% geothermal... one of the cleanest countries in the world, but again hydroelectric power is vulnerable to changing rainfall patterns.
When I was a kid, my mum told me to clear up the consequences of my own messes. Please can America, China, Europe, Australia, and other top emitters clean up their own mess and the consequences that that mess is creating for us others. Homo Sapiens got lazy stopping at the combustion engine as a way to get ourselves around and power things and too greedy for too many things. It is time to move on and find cleaner, simpler and more integrated ways of enjoying each day We can do it.
If you don't like this perspective, tough.
PUTTING POLITICS INTO PERSPECTIVE
Michael Johansen
The Telegram
There are few more refreshing ways to take a break from an annoying provincial election than to go to a talk about the coming global famine wars and the collapse of mass civilization.
Gwynne Dyer was in town and where Gwynne Dyer goes, storm clouds follow. The world-famous Newfoundland-born, but London-based writer (his columns appear 100 times a year in more than 100 newspapers — lucky guy) was in Happy Valley-Goose Bay last week to tell northern farmers from several countries their lives were about to radically change, and probably not for the better.
Most of the many guests at the gala dinner (the closing event of the sixth international conference of the Circumpolar Agriculture Association, the theme of which was, "Northern Agriculture — Evolving with a Changing World") were no doubt already aware of this, but Dyer wanted to press home that things will likely get a lot worse than anyone imagines.
The columnist admitted to coming late to this realization himself, saying he didn't consider the issue of climate change to have over-riding importance until he recently found out about something called Lifeboat Britain. This is supposedly a contingency plan drawn up by the government in Westminster to turn the British Isles into a nuclear-armed camp, so as to be able to (to go back to the lifeboat metaphor) "repel borders" when the Sahara Desert spreads into southern Europe and technologically advanced but hungry armies from Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey and other countries come looking for the food Britons might still be able to produce, but for themselves alone.
Dyer's message to the conference-goers (with whom he had just topped off a nice meal with a rich slice of partridgeberry cheesecake) was that if this scenario happens in Europe (and he said it was looking increasingly probable), it will happen in every hemisphere around the world, north and south — since that's how the planet works.
Even as growing seasons last longer and longer in the higher latitudes, deserts will take over land that until now has provided much of the food we eat.
Russia, Dyer said as an example, might be able to feed itself from its vast northern territories. But China won't be able to feed itself. China, however, might still be able to send a million well-armed soldiers to go take what they need.
Dyer pointed out, the growing American deserts might not prevent the United States from growing food its citizens need, but it won't be able to do it without Canada's water. He suggested Canadians might be wise to start selling it to Americans before they take it by force.
"If it becomes important for southern societies, southern societies will move in," he said.
It almost sounds like Labradorians will feel right at home in this post-enviroapocalyptic world — not because they'll be familiar with the climate of mild winters and long growing seasons, but because, as Dyer warned, southern people will be running the show.
Even that was almost his best-case scenario, since he pointed out if industrialized countries like Canada don't cut their energy consumption by at least 60 per cent over the next decade and then endure further cuts to help industrializing countries like China make the transition in the cleanest way possible, chaos will likely ensue and our global civilization could fall in ruins around us.
What that means for everyone is that we should not be looking for ways to produce more energy, but we should instead be using much, much less of it.
What that means specifically for this province (although these aren't Dyer's words) is that Newfoundland and Labrador shouldn't be trying to replace energy output from places like the Holyrood thermal generating station with electricity created by destroying precious wilderness in Labrador. Instead, people should be learning to do without that power altogether.
If we succeed, as Dyer said in an attempt to end on an optimistic point, then humanity might have a long future ahead. If we fail, even the current provincial election won't matter in the long run.
Captmorgan:
Dec.21,2012 is just the last day of the mayan Long Count 13 baktun calendar. The next day it starts over. On that particular day the sun will be in a certain position with respect to the Milky Way. It seems that the ancient people were marking the earths precession (wobble). The surprising thing is that they were able to predict a celestial event with such great accuracy.
Windhorse:
Sorry if I offended your sensibilities. Just trying to inject some humor. I'm not lost. Rush has somewhere to post as well? Hmmm...
TOM 3 BIRDS: Welcome to "our" conversation. I appreciate your waxing lyrical on the theme of compassion. Many times in this forum I have commented that human nature has been veered unnaturally towards its more bestial components, the Mars-rule of ego, violence, me-first, force and competition over those values astrologers attribute to Venus: cooperation, a concern for beauty, extending empathy, recognizing a balance between self-interest and that which benefits the whole, the greater good.
Modern psychology shaped by the predominant shadow aspect of human nature (as incited by societies and systems that promote the Mars rules approach) probably sees its future in the model of "Lord of the Flies," where the aggression built up in egos and civilizations for centuries results in a brutal pecking order.
The compassion (Venus) model would see people working together to support their common survival. Often communities ravaged by weather events choose this approach, I'll call it "plan B."
Climate destabilization is certainly underway. The degree to which it impacts American communities is yet to be seen; however, there is an obscenity to the fact that western societies use such a disproportionate share of global resources, yet this behavior--expressed through climate--affects the poor, and those who live along the equatorial region thus far most.
Will we see our own communities fall to the level of predator and prey? Or will people work together when the geological shit hits the fan?
2012 not withstanding, a great body of prophecy defines this era as a time of massive transition. We cannot live the old ways much longer, and how we adapt, what it demonstrates in the kind of persons that we are and elect to become is not yet in evidence. A phoenix will eventually rise, nor can we yet define its character. From the stand point of karma, as Masters have taught, behave with dignity and respect for all sentient beings, since it is Law that "Whatsoever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me." This is what is meant by spiritual persons when they advise persons to live CONSCIOUSLY. In food choices, in purchased items, in how much one drives their auto (and what level of fuel it burns), in how one treats others, etc. "Be kind to one another," style... never goes OUT of style.
bloofer..
What are you saying?? How do you know to breath??
You are not in any way shape or form an educated person who knows very much about modern infectious diseases, are you??
I do not have any amnesia, for my training and experience of the past history of these killer diseases and the consequences of anxious parents listening (sadly) to foolish and stupid numbskulls like you..
Don't kill?? Not always, not 100% NO, of course not .. But enough in non-vaccinated populations with reduced herd immunity and enough serious morbidity..
You are the one imposing, you dangerous, ignorant shill.
Paul M.-- PUH-LEEZE! In my generation, before the vaccine for whooping cough, we all had whooping cough, a usually mild, self-limiting childhood ailment. My generation also had measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken-pox. We were certainly not decimated--though we did sometimes stay home from school for a few days due to itchy rashes, annoying coughs, and sore necks.
Most of these ailments are scarcely more dangerous than the common cold or flu, and a number of studies have shown that the vaccinations are more likely to cause harm than the illness they are designed to prevent.
Of course, now that collective amnesia has set in about these mild childhood ailments, people like Paul M. can impose on people by representing them as some kind of deadly plagues. My mother would have laughed to hear such nonsense.
Lots of great comments here.
Consider:
Gore's CO2/temp chart covers 650k yrs. That means that in past 5-6 cycles/spikes, the rapid (geologically) reversal of the spikes occurred before the Grnlnd and Antarctic caps melted away.
The reversal is triggered by temp, not CO2/methane.
When ice above sea level melts to water , globally, because the earth is rotating, that water flows to the equatorial latitudes making the bulge in the shape of the planet. It follows that the shift in mass would also cause the tectonic plates to shift, creating undersea volcanism which further warms the oceans.
The magnetic poles have swapped ends periodically, according to the record of "magnetic stripping" on both sides of the Atlantic Ridge, about every 75k yrs, but it seems, we're overdue by about 100k yrs...USGS, NASA, etc.
Looks like we have either mimiced a natural cycle, or are in sync with one. Those natural (probably weather) cycles must have been fairly astounding (to reverse the spikes). That we have added, and continue to add, anthropogenic heat to the mix, may constitute a "forcing-of-the-forcings" that moves the climate models into non-linear, counter-intuitive, 4-dimensional territory.
What a hoot...
Paul M., if you're going to be abusive to other posters, please be sure you know your science...Pertussis is really only life threatening in infants and the vaccine tends to wear off after about 5 years any way so many teens and adults exposed to the disease do get a mild form of it. At that point it is mostly just terribly uncomfortable, not virulent enough to wipe out the undeserving.
This isn't an argument against vaccines, just a plea for a civil tone and a more careful use of scientific "facts" all around.
"If we don't act to actually cool the Earth, Earth will become the twin of Venus." Most likely all planets that harbour intelligent life for long enough go through the process of discovering fossil fuels and inventing engines that burn them until said intelligent life is wiped out by climate change. So there are probably many many twins of Venus out there, and we can stop looking for advanced alien civilisations-there probably aren't any that get much further than we humans are going to on earth.
"Is anyone familiar with the Mayan prediction of major change for mankind in 2012?" Sure, it's dramatised in serial form on the planetTV podcast: http://www.dailyplanettv.net/
2012...Terence McKenna would know...wouldn't he?
http://deoxy.org/t_re-evo.htm
Or maybe ask that nutcase David Jacobs...
http://www.cloudriderbooks.net/alien_abductions_jacobs.html
Is anyone familiar with the Mayan prediction of major change for mankind in 2012?
Add to that the situation in the Amazon....
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3028701.ece
yo grandma:
kem put up a
"gone fishing"
sign a while back
ken
I just joined this impressive group! There is another Common Dreams article which relates to all this:Published on Saturday, October 6, 2007 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Last Green Taboo: Engineering the Planet
by Johann Hari. Talk about being down this road before..
Capt. Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has said: "The Human Species is Insane." Sadly, I agree, although I believe there are individuals of our species that have conscience, wisdom and forethought(some are apparently in this discussion). Global climate change is here, and engineering gimicks won't solve it. I am more concerned about the other life on this planet which is suffering and will probably become extinct, because our species is egocentric, and out of control. The world will do just fine with out humans, but the process of elimating us will be very traumatic for ALL life. Sometimes I feel like I'm in one of those science fiction novels I have read in the past, and now it's all coming true.
No mention in the article of methane release as the tundra thaws - but that's a serious matter. The tundra everywhere holds a lot of methane and when it's released by thawing tundra it flies straight up to heaven and becomes yet another greenhouse gas. It's also a killer to breathe if it reaches certain levels (5% according to KEM PATRICK, our expert on all this on the CD blogs).
Hope he logs in on this -
New poster:
Human nature...sigh.
Climate control.I thought i told you to stop polluting.
see here:
http://www.rfcity.org/eng/Information/StopSigns.htm
There are 1,480,000 hits on google for Stop/sign+city.
We are already past the time for just preventative measures (ending all manmade greenhouse gas emissions). We must find and implement measures that will cool the Earth not just keep it from getting warmer. The natural rate at which greenhous gasses leave the atmosphere is too slow to counterbalance the rate at which greenhouse gasses are emitted by thawing tundra given the Earth's current temperature, the amount of greenhouse gasses stored in the Earth's frozen tundra, and the new ratio of frozen to open water. If we don't act to actually cool the Earth, Earth will become the twin of Venus. Saving our knowledge for future whatever makes as much sense as sending signals into space asking beings from other galaxies to save us. It is just us, right here, right now. Other than painting all roofs white the only other plan I know of is too launch sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight. It looks like that is the only real option left.
CO2 is lighter than air! Blow me down, now there's news - high school science experiments (where you can watch CO2 sinking) be damned.
Never mind - we will soon be free of people like mustbefree. It's basic darwinism: in addition to their other crackpot ideas, they tend to be anti-vaccination. Once there are enough of them that the form a connected population mass, a whooping cough plague will sweep through them and wipe them all out.
TOM3BIRDS
welcome to commondreams.........and thankyou for your well written and concise piece. however, if you've visited before,(reading only) then you will know we have been down this road many times and cannot find a solution. it's not just governments - it's individuals too. but your average man in the street is too busy trying to survive to educate himself about things that for the time being, do not affect him personally. empathy and compassion went out the window when greed, hatred and msm walked in............however, KEM PATRICK will be delighted to know there are beavers running amok in the arctic......
Mustbefree is pretty much correct about the earth. Here's an explanation I read about it the other day (borrowed without permission):
"Everyone knows that there is no warming in the Southern Hemisphere! CO2 is a gas that is lighter than air and it rises in the
atmosphere. And since the Earth is oriented "UP" it's all in the
Northern Hemisphere! Once there it combines with second hand smoke to create a plasma jet that is slowly rotating the earth into a "DOWN" position where the gases will then rise to the South pole. Gosh…"
Seems pretty clear to me that we're in real trouble here.
natural affinity, rest as awareness and experience the "basic space of all perception" primordial wisdom, a natural support for personal and global well-being. check this out-free downloads of talks by Candice O'Denver at (www.greatfreedom.org)
Gore must run.
We are at a crossroads on the precipice of a tipping point and hanging on by our fingernails.
All very dramatic. When will the average person do something? When will the government support energy conservation and renewable energy?
When will we just stop wasting energy as if it were free?
When there is no other choice. NOT ONE MINUTE BEFORE!
mustbefree, the earth has NEVER "flipped". The magnetic poles have reversed many times in the past and will reverse again in the future, but the earth itself does not flip. Further, magnetic pole reversal is an effect of dynamics at the earths core, not at its surface.
For fedayeen and simonhhh and others: Just a point of definition. Instead of using the word "nadir", I believe, in context of your comments, the word "apex" would have been more appropriate. Other antonyms of 'nadir' would be either 'zenith' or 'peak'. I offer this with best wishes, and appreciation for your contributions and feelings on this topic. This is my first 'log-on', and am greatly indebted to CommonDreams for this service and to all sincere participants.
The most important resource to be developed, as these deepening orders of crisis expand and 'tip', is the one that we, as a species, have utilized least. And what might that resource be?
Compassion. ..... Empathy. ....
Being together in the silent music of birth, living, dying and transformation.
These are conscious choices: truly "being with and within the heart and living being of another." Some individuals and some small groups within a number traditional societies have 'cultured' these seeds, these gifts over generations, over millenia. They are the keys of survival. They DO represent more nearly the apex of who we are. We of uncivilized empires, and all sorts of fanaticism on every continent, have ignored, or worse,--- so often have decimated these peoples, our brothers and sisters of other ways and tongues.
What we are facing most profoundly, and yet, staring right through it, as though it were some vaguely familiar ghost, is the reality of just who we are in the fullness of our humanity. We are all mostly asleep, mostly in another sort of dream called 'waking'.
Yes, we and our children and countless generations yet to come, will witness famines, extinction of the most vulnerable species, the influx of exotic species into vastly changed ecosystems, new and emerging illness, the fall of political systems, economic underpinnings in collapse, wave upon wave of human migrations [among other species in permanent displacement]. Increasing desertification in once lush valleys and plains, and the opposite extremes of flood, and unprecedented torrential rain in other climes.
We will need, as Jennifer K. Greenberg implies, the wisest of our best and brightest minds [and hearts] upon this planet, the full range of technical knowledge, and scientific focus more integrated and dedicated than ever before.
But without facilitation toward empowering new vehicles and creative structures for empathy, we are truly lost. Only another Alexandrian Library awaiting the torch. Massacres bred by butchering technology, fed by fear and loathing. It would have been the lowest of the low at the very end.
The real torch of leadership toward this paradigm moment is ironically, gravely passed to those who play the power games of empire, of media drivel, and the sheer waste and sickness of egoism run amok in virtually every land on Earth. And of course, starting right here at home, what Gore Vidal has so well termed these "United States of Amnesia". Who among them would receive that precious torch, and yet refrain from torching the world. So few so-called leaders are worthy of that title. So many enmeshed in the violence of corporatism, militarism, and collective psychopathy.
Unless and until we find a myriad of ways to express true compassion in real, down-to-earth terms, to affirm caring for each other, and updated to meet the astonishing needs of such ongoing, planetary changes,.....until then, we are only spouting steam and empty, worn-out metaphors.
We can rise to the task. We are capable of being much more human than we may think we are. We can be worthy of the cosmos. We can be worthy of the Earth. We can be the pioneers of compassion, on roads we had never thought to travel.
The rest is up to every one of us. No more idleness. It is time to actively share the dreams, to work together at every level, in compassionate common cause. I do welcome your thoughtful comments, and look forward to dialogue.
What I put was an incomplete sentence.The magnetic poles would move so fast that the earth would flip.It has happened before and the only thing that I can see to give all life a break is that the migration of the poles stays at a very gradual level.Ice by its very nature is pretty stationary so you can see if it melts it will destablize the earth.Checked wikipedia for magnetic pole reversal. Tony
I too live just north of the 45th parallel...Portland, Oregon.
THE POLAR BEAR DEMISE
How many more dead canaries in the coal mine will be required before its too late.
Unless the USA, the largest emitter of carbon pollution, seriously undertakes the meaningful measures necessary to curtail our contribution to greenhouse gasses, the less industrialized & third world nations will have no incentives to control their emissions. This can never happen until Americans render ineffective the special interests and their supporting administrations that have prevented the necessary reforms through deception and fabricated science--albeit with the aid of an apathetic populace and defaulting legislators.
Contrary to their assertions, the measures to reduce carbon pollution can only improve our economy and security by reducing our oil imports while improving our health & quality of life.
By placing unlerned and corrupt individuals in the presidency over intelligent and principled candidates, those apathetic Americans deserve the worst government and environment that money can buy --ie such as Regan the great communicator to the ignorant) over Jimmy Carter; and Bush (chartered by God and oil) over Al Gore. Need I say more?
another world epoch, another age, time will tell, as the Chronicle of Leibwitz, showed the warning of the past ages even though crippled with rituals of power and grace thru rituals, make it clear that the warnings of the ancients will be only vaguely heard, "first by water, then by fire..." "I will destroy them that destroy the earth..." REV 11:17, seems like humans do a pretty good job themselves, though gods hand and Mans, sometimes the same,,,,the idiots trying to rush the apocolypse by arming and warring for Armeggedon, are sick psychotics, god is not interested in a fucked up planet,,,,the messiah, is us,,,,think about it, and try living on a polluted dead planet,,,
Still "almost" at a tipping point, are we?
fedayeen..."This species isn't the nadir of development....", in fact the evidence mounting daily [or more appropo MELTING daily] suggests for all the high tech 'flim flam' the current wave of 'homo sapien' out of Africa for the last 100,000 years has been an abject failure.
Then you correctly say; "hopefully won't be around for much longer, giving the earth a chance to recuperate."
Preserve human knowledge for who? If the next batch of humanoids can't improve on this last try then they deserve the same. This species isn't the nadir of development, and hopefully won't be around for much longer, giving the earth a chance to recuperate and possibly regain some of it's former natural environment.
I know that geophysics is a fascinating topic, and it should be discussed fervently and vigorously. However, I think that a more proper response to this article should be directed towards focusing our attention on the topic it describes.
Perhaps, if we are to believe J. Lovelock (father of the Gaia theory), and this is indeed the worst case scenario happening before our very eyes what we need to focus our efforts on is the preservation of the vast array of acquired human knowledge.
Or perhaps apply that knowledge and actually do something about this seemingly inevitable catastrophe?
Maybe we should, at least, come up with a plan for the worst case scenario? Not that we aren't prepared and all...I mean, look at how splendidly well prepared the supposedly most developed nation in the world reacted to hurricane Katrina. What a show stopping performance. Perhaps, we should stop the show and turn to reality instead.
The rapidity of permafrost melt is very disturbing and echoes similar reports from Siberia. It seems clear to me that the positive feedback loop predicting this some years ago is now in full swing, although scientists will want more data before they make such an unequivocal statement,
The rapidity of changes caused by global warming when combined with what appears to be the peak in production of all petroleum liquids in 2006 spells CRISIS--one that demands a rapid change of political direction by the United States Empire.
Agreed Douglas Barnes. I am not sure what mustbefree is speaking about, but climatic change will NOT affect the Earth's rotation.
I read an article about living in Thule (Greenland). 50 years ago, mosquitoes were unknown. Today they have reached plague proportions and render being outside and unprotected a very dangerous practice.
Rotation of the planet? No effect at all. In fact, I don't know what you mean by 'flipping" rotation. Reversing? That is a physical impossibility. Perhaps you are meaning the magnetic poles. This would not have an effect on them.
While not in the arctic, I am in Canada just a hair north of the 45th parallel and the weather is unseasonably hot. We have been hovering at 5 to 10 C above the norm, and this sort of thing has been intensifying over the years. Our USDA climate zones have marched north be over 100km.
And nothing said about how this is going to destabilize the rotation of the planet which will cause it to flip.When?Probobly sooner than we think.Tony
In case you Cats do not know it yet. eraldo is lost over here having nothing better to do with his/her/it time than when he/she/it is posting over on Rush "the fat ass" site.
BTW - Did anyone see Bill Moyers "Now" last night? Covered some grid-free homes. It can be done - already 300,000 in the US have done it.
Paul M:
Ha-Ha. That's funny. If CO2 sank, wouldn't the global warming be around our feet?
This science stuff is great.
Let it burn.