Scientist: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Hit Danger Mark Sooner Then Expected
SYDNEY - The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a U.N. international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level.
Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent — a level not expected for another 10 years.
“We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade,” Flannery told Australian television late on Monday.
“We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we crossed that threshold,” he said.
“What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change.”
Flannery, from Macquarie University and author of the climate change book “The Weather Makers”, said he had seen the raw data which will be in the IPCC Synthesis Report.
He said the measurement of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere included not just carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). All these gases were measured and then equated into potentially one gas to reach a general level.
“They’re all having an impact. Probably 75 percent is carbon dioxide but the rest is that mixed bag of other gases,” he said.
Collision Course
Flannery said global economic expansion, particularly in China and India, was a major factor behind the unexpected acceleration in greenhouse gas levels.
“We’re still basing that economic activity on fossil fuels. You know, the metabolism of that economy is now on a collision course, clearly, with the metabolism of our planet,” he said.
The report adds an urgency to international climate change talks on the Indonesian island of Bali in December, as reducing greenhouse gas emissions may no longer be enough to prevent dangerous climate change, he said.
U.N. environment ministers meet in December in Bali to start talks on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change that expires in 2012.
“We can reduce emissions as strongly as we like — unless we can draw some of the standing stock of pollutant out of the air and into the tropical forests, we’ll still face unacceptable levels of risk in 40 years time,” he said.
Flannery suggested the developed world could buy “climate security” by paying villages in countries like Papua New Guinea not to log forests and to regrow forests.
“That 200 gigatonnes of carbon pollutant, the standing stock that’s in the atmosphere, is there courtesy of the industrial revolution, and we’re the beneficiaries of that and most of the world missed out,” he said.
“So I see that as a historic debt that we owe the world. And I can’t imagine a better way of paying it back than trying to help the poorest people on the planet.”
© 2007 Reuters
What will the cockroaches do with all that money we’re going to leave them?
We can control overpopulation humanely or let nature do it for us inhumanely.
If more brainwashed fools were to stop driving everywhere and start walking and cycling, to try growing their own food or buying locally, to stop buying so much f’ing uneccessary, badly made sh*t, from Asia, to choose to work for a better planet rather than just to pay the debts they owe…
…it would still be too late then?! Enjoy Hell everyone.
It’s ok, I’m sure BP and Chevron will save us with all the new “clean” alternative fuels they are rapidly developing because they care so much about the environment.
This is along the lines of information I have been looking out for. Science by its very nature is broad and cautious. In an editorial you might read “We’re Doomed at Last!” but not in a published paper. Add the spin and pseudo-science, and you won’t get the message you should.
I prayed that we would run out of oil soon, but the wars will just drag it on. I prayed that we would stop the coal, but there’s still plenty of that. Americans will switch to coal powered electricity rather than solar. I prayed that people would connect meat and other industrial processes with cancer, and stop methane/other pollution.
I do not know how this will play out, but more talk like this article will show that even if we stopped emiting 100% right now, we still have to remove much pollution. Plant more forets? Where will all the people go. I pray now that the genetically engineered microorganism we create to suck up the pollution will not kill everything with its unintended consequences.
It was always ‘incentive’ ($) that led us to pollute; I just can’t envision a true incentive (not love or honor) that would lead us to eliminate pollution.
Humanity and life and the earth will survive. Only life will be less diverse, making it less resiliant.
We are now being forced to address this problem, and I pray now that our corrections and the earth’s will pass each other smoothly.
I have, I hope, 50 years left on this planet- if cancer or violence doesn’t get me- and I wonder how I’m going to spend it.
Enough with the population control nonsense. The overwhelming majority of the carbon emissons, and the most rapidly increasing carbon emissions incrases are all from the countriies with stable or only slowly growing populations.
I can only assume these population control poeple are grasping at it as a solution to globsl warming because they refuse to change their polluting habits.
“Humanity and life and the earth will survive.”
On the longer term, it won’t. Astrophysicists tell us that the sun is inevitably increasing it’s output, the earth’s most clement and resilant phase is probably over. Severe climatic perterbations like like the great Permian-Traissiac heating and extinction, if they occur now, may not be recoverable like that event barely was.
It is believed that even without any disruptions, in another 300-500 million years, the earth will almost cetainly be too hot to have life on it - it’s oceans boiled and evaporated into space. So, considering the life-supporting period of the earth’s history goes back about 2.3 billion years, one can say that the earth is already about 70 years old in “Gaia-years”. And, dear old Grandma Gaia is about to get mugged.
We don’t want to face it but greed kills. The higher gas and oil prices may discourage use amongst individuals but it encourages investing in oil companies. Somehow when we need to use oil less, we make using oil that much more profitable for investors. Exxon made 75 billion in profits over two years, setting the record for profits for any corporation ever in both years.
How is this going to encourage them to get us off oil? An excess profits tax would do much to encourage switching to alternatives. Greed goes where the money is. Oil is obscenely profitable and as long as it remains so… it will remain in use. If oil wasn’t profitable (say charging oil producers for the negative costs of producing carbon in the atmosphere) then investors would invest in alternative energy producing means. Say owning windmill farms, solar arrays in the desert etc.! Energy production means money by whatever means it is produced.
But as long as high oil prices produce record profits… greed will rationalize making money at whatever the cost… to us all.
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 greenhouse 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 open water to frozen water. If we don’t act to actually cool the Earth, Earth will become the twin of Venus.
The climate tipping points are just whizzing by. Artic melting, Tundra thawing and Amazon burning, and Greenhouse gases still accelerating. In the very same country as Tim Flannery, the government announces a 2 billion dollar package to spend on upgrading a major highway, and there is more money for building road tollway extensions for the motorist. In Sydney, very few are giving up their car for public transport, despite sitting in slow or jammed traffic every day. Large public transport improvement plans are delayed, compromised or thrown out the window. There is no policy co-ordination between the need to prevent planet wide extinction, and the need to take local actions. Its as if the transport policy designers had never heard of global warming. The government hopes for carbon capture have yet to be realized, as if there was real progress, we would hear about it. Its much more like public money capture by the carbon industries, while the only renewable hopes get starved for development. Never will there a be again a society so bent on the pathways to extinction, while acting so desperately to preserve its way of life, and the wealth and priveleges of its elites. What is required is climate change priority overriding every facet of planning and resource usage. A climate change ombudsman with real teeth and ultimate authority. Until consent and power is granted to such a process, we all haven’t a snowballs chance in climate change hell.
The climate tipping points are just whizzing by. Artic melting, Tundra thawing and Amazon burning, and Greenhouse gases still accelerating. What is required is an emergency overhaul of our social and government organisation, to put climate change as a priority overriding every facet of planning and resource usage. A climate change ombudsman with real teeth and ultimate authority. Until consent and power is granted to such a process, we all haven’t a snowballs chance in climate change hell. Its a climate war emergency, so stop the press, stop the people. All other priorities are just meaningless planning for a future that won’t exist. There isn’t time to grow a new generation of leaders who understand this. Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary responses, not just more of the same old. World leaders should abandon all other cares and responsibilities and wars, and work on this now till its sorted out, or else we are all bullshit. There is no other future.
“Carbon dioxide equivalent” assumes that we have a pretty accurate knowledge of the effects of CO2 and the other gases, such as methane, which is something like 18x more potent than CO2, so they say.
The question is, how can you judge the effect of this hypothetical gas, this mixture? It would seem better to treat them separately because the accumulation of CO2 can be better estimated from known sources, whereas methane is a wild card.
As the artic warms and the permafrost melts, methane concentrations may accelerate much faster than CO2. There is no way to monitor the methane bubbling up over vast uninhabited areas, so far as I know. It could be that methane is outgassing much faster than the IPCC realizes.
Could be that the “tipping point” has come and gone…
“Somebody” should do “something.”
As I have invited on another thread, if there is anyone out there who holds acreage that wants to do something concrete about carbon sequestration, please contact me via the hyperlink over my name.
Old King Coal was a Scary old soul and a scary old soul was he.
I though that the Frost Giants were supposed to win - so much for scripture…
Sooo…those compact fluorescents that I bought aren’t going to do the trick!
I do not buy the “There’s no hope! We’re all going to die!” argument.
In the mid 1960’s, carbon 14 concentrations in the atmosphere spiked at 200% their 1948 level due to contamination from nuclear weapons testing. C14 concentrations then fell to 150% of the 1948 level in less than 10 years, and has since returned to nearly the baseline taken in 1948.
The half-life of carbon 14 is 8500 years, not 10. That extra carbon - most of it carbon dioxide - was sequestered, most of that in less than a decade.
The carbon cycle hasn’t quit working yet. We have outpaced it, but that hasn’t made it go away. It is still there, recycling more CO2 every decade than was released from petroleum during the entire 20th century.
FOR A COMING EXTINCTION
Gray whale
Now that we are sinding you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day
The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours
When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your work to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important
~ W.S. Merwin
Yes, the carbon cycle is still working. But it’s working less strongly than it was a century, or a half-century, or a decade ago. Meanwhile, GHG emissions continue to increase — something like 180 new coal plants are in the pipeline, in the USA alone.
We need to do two things, now. The quick one is decrease GHG emissions. Those who want the carbon economy to continue (because that’s how they got rich) talk like that’s impossible — it will wreck the economy. In truth, a move to sustainable energy will create great wealth and boost the national economy (we need to rebuild the US energy industry, as well as the Chinese energy industry). Unfortunately, for those who own the best government money can buy, it’s new players who are likely to get rich.
The second thing we need to do, and it will take more time, is restore the capacity of the natural carbon cycle. Not by gimmicks like dumping iron in the ocean, but by restoring tropical rainforests (our most effective carbon sinks). Stop burning, stop cutting, pay people to maintain, and to plant, and to restore. Carbon sequestration is a valuable service, and can be a basis for a strong regional economy, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
Are we all going to die next year? Probably not. Do we need to start orbiting mirrors, or parasols, at an altitude of 20,000 miles? Not quite yet. Do we need to assemble a climatological Apollo-Program-meets-World-War-II? Yup. That would about do it.
this situation is truly tragic- but part of me wants to watch the sh*t hit the fan so the bastards who have been running the show face the music- but perhaps they are aware of it and have planned for gated communities
my proposal is this- survival of those who are aware of the crisis and do the best to help those who are trapped in unliveable situations- it really seems to late to affect any change as the power structure is so entrenched and apathy is a pandemic among most of the population
how about using the connections through websites such as this to develop self-sustaining communes linked by alternative forms of communication
when it happens, I really believe that police state will be implemented in such a rapid and frightening manner that those who have not prepared beforehand will truly suffer-
as a father, I am deeply worried about the future of our children
so- anyone into starting to create these type of communes that can preserve the knowledege of our species and provide a hope for life after the coming deluge?
The corporations don’t get it. The politicians don’t get it. The big media don’t get it.
How in the world are we going to manage a change of the scale that’s needed when the major forces in society don’t want to care?
We are still worshiping a “growth” which is just a form of death. A “happiness” that is just a form of earth-killing. An “entertainment” that is just a form of paralysis.
So, how many of you out there are SERIOUSLY changing your energy use habits?
It sure is time.
I wish personal energy use habits could make a difference- but we are talking about massive, global issues that are beyond the scope of any individual- i bike as much as possible, limit energy use, but unless all of the nations of the world, esp. china and india line up, there is really little hope
turn on the tv and it seems like business as usual- but the reality is that the end is nigh- remember carl jung’s prophetic dream- but some will survive
Yes, the corporations have to change how they do business; the government has to change how it functions, and the society has to be facilitated in those changes by the former two; it is not about us buying organic or buying green, or using “more public transportation.” It is about the government investing billions of dollars into public high speed rail systems, solar and wind power; and making it illegal to sell pollution; making it illegal to give out plastic bags, to use oil to drive cars; making it illegal to use pesticides/herbicides, and chemical fertlizers. It is not a voluntary thing that people can be insulted for not doing after the fact. I do everything I can; if you don’t, then you should be put in a position where you are best able to; where it is easy to, but if you decide not to after that point, there should be legislation to give you another nudge in the right direction. And no, it is not about “population.”
chlorocardium wrote: “So, how many of you out there are SERIOUSLY changing your energy use habits?”
We strive to use only current carbon, and indeed, we may well be a carbon sink.
Using Permaculture ethics and principles, we rescue slash piles and berm or chip them. Detritivores then decompose the berms or chips in a manner that pulls even more carbon out of the air. We chip them using “chip” oil — waste vegetable oil we harvest from local restaurants, another “current carbon” source, which we also use for the relatively little transportation we need. (Outside of family visits, we travel less than 3,000 km per year.)
But can everyone do this? Probably not, even if they were willing to quit their jobs and work twelve hour days, six days a week, growing food. Many studies indicate human numbers have overshot the carrying capacity of the planet. Some people are going to have to “go away” before even our sustainable life-style can be adopted by everyone to create a steady-state civilization, which is something no one has ever tried before.
But that’s no reason to not strive to create what Richard Heinberg calls “lifeboat communities,” which may be the seeds of the next sustainable era of humankind. Or not — but at least what humanity is doing to the planet and to each other isn’t on OUR karma!
Yes, overpopulation is an issue, but it takes a very long time to address it in any sort of effective way. The tools of population stabilization include promoting equality and better educational and economic opportunities for women, tackling social stigma about childfree lifestyles and smaller families, ensuring all have solid, science-based reproductive-health information, and most importantly, fighting against conservative religions that think uncontrolled breeding is somehow good. All of this will take time, which is why other efforts, to get consumption down in overdeveloped countries for instance, are even more important.
This 455 ppm is a 2005 reading? Why are we just hearing about it now? I thought our U.S. phucks said right now, 2007 we were at 428 ppm!
These oil companies must know all these things, they have weather stations all over the artic to support their extraction efforts. I think the U.S. government has been trying to dick up the numbers….. to avoid “panic.”
All the more reason to call for a special election of the executive branch and the congress.
They are doing: Less than nothing.
It’s going to get hot hot hot. I thought my clan was going to be spared this chit. But now……
Looks also to me like the Greenland Ice sheet will break up in a few years (read the other CD article about accellerating glaciers) this means a 20 ft rise in sea levels.
Sweet Jumping Jesus! What’s next? An Asteroid?
Going back to PJD’s comments about the eventual demise of the third rock. Those here that aren’t science dilletantes but only follow stories about climate change may be unaware of some other interesting facts.
The magnetic field that is a result of the swirling molten iron core of this planet is not fixed or unchanging. In fact, that field has switched polarity many times in the life of this planet. Evidence is now accumulating that at the onset of these reversals there is a period when this magnetic flux is in such a state of disorganization that for all intents and purposes, there is no magnetic field surrounding this planet. As many of you are aware it is this magnetic field that shields us from solar and other cosmic rays and makes most life here possible.
Several years ago we witnessed a very intense solar storm that sent great plumes of solar gasses and rays hurtling in our direction. Imagine if that occurance had coincided with a magnetic polar reversal. Most of our atmosphere would probably have been stripped from this rock and we wouldn’t be here now posting innane remarks.
Those who have studied physics are indoctrinated into the the nature of the various forces acting in the universe. At an atomic level electrical charge and the “atomic forces” (forces acting on protons, neutrons, and subatomic particles) are the principal actors and gravity and magnetic forces are hardly noticed. However, on a macro scale, a cosmic scale, it is magnetism and ultimately gravitation that are the principal players. This is all to paraphrase and it is much, much more complicated than that. The point is, we don’t even know if a magnetic polar reversal on planet earth might possibly trigger a solar storm. Think about that one for awhile.
In a piece I posted earlier this week (God Words) I stated “The world has not witnessed a living species that does not strive to continue living.” Corporate power may put the lie to that remark. An old boss and mentor of mine would always chide me for my lack of organization with “what happens to your client accounts if you get hit by a beer truck tomorrow?” I had no answer for that except to jokingly say that I hope it might be an imported beer truck.
The only human and humane thing to do is to continue to work for survival, to devise and implement strategies for survival. And if we were to reverse anthropomorhic climate change and we all broke into a giant planetary party, hugs and kisses all around, yes pacplyer at that moment there is nothing to say that we might not be impacted by a giant asteroid - end of story.
Life is scary, there are no guarantees. But I for one, regardless of whether I think the end will come in six months or six thousand years from now, will work for survival. It is the only human thing to do.
I forgot to mention. Evidence is also accumulating that the planet is going into the preliminary phase of magnetic polar reversal. It appears to be about an 11,000 year cycle.
We are entering the period of the “forcing of the forcings” in that global warming has become non-linear and beyond intuitive. The only economic system that has a prayer of moderating the effects will start to do what can be done only after it pussy-foots around trying to make a profit out of the effort.
Typical example: Chevron touts its move to alternatives with a development of geo-thermal power generation when an evaluation of the CO2/temp chart from the ice cores tells us that the climate event that defeats and reverses the spikes has a temperature trigger, not a CO2 trigger, although they go hand in hand. They are moving heat from the magma to the atmosphere.
For instance, with the resources pissedaway in the middle-east we could have covered every roof in the world with solar PV cells, both reducing structure cooling load and producing electricity, and shuttered half the coal power plants.
Loss of a third of the Greenland ice cap is a given. Fast or slow, it will go. My guess: is three years. This S hemisphere summer will be a wakeup call.
Look at that friggin chart-it will tell you a lot.
Then look at USGS earthquake data, magnetic striping in the atlantic ridge for pole-swap, methane release from the ocean floor theories, and it’s easy to see that not only will we get more of this party, but it’ll come sooner, too.
Sorry, I have no degrees (pun) to back this up- just have to wait and see, I guess…
cheers
It’s later than you all think. Life for humanity and most land animals on Earth will end within twelve to fourteen years no matter if all use of burning any type of fuel on Earth stopped tomorrow.
There is absolutely nothing whatsoever that anyone can do about it. For us Americans, we have less time, within a year, we will have a depression and most of us will be killed or die from starvation within six months after that begins. If you wish to do something productive, that too is out of the question, there is nothing any of you can do that will be productive. Just turn your computers off and take a long walk and smell the roses. You worried about who will win the next election or if social security will be saved, or will Cheney be impeached, etc? Why worry about anything? You all have from one to fourteen years left and then you will be dead. ~~Ga-nite
Here in the UK, there’s the Green Party and a few people talking about Tradeable Energy Quotas.
These are issued to all adult members of the public, annually, free, on a decreasing basis. They get traded in whenever fuel is bought, and ideally, non-local public transport too. Anyone who’s got surplus can make a killing selling them; anyone who can afford rather too many flights, will have to pay for extra quotas. This helps money flow from rich to poor. The poor and the thrifty can then, if they’re wise, use the money so they use even less fuel next year.
This creates a market economy where there’s a race to the bottom, energy-wise. Industry sees this, and invests and researches products that will help this energy conscious mob.
And at work, there’s a total carbon-conscious mindset, that sees that companies, government, and every other sector, cuts their emissions.
Talk to the powers that be: may your country be the first to adopt TEQs!
VREN makes a good point; but the big obstacle to effective change is our debt-money system. With virtually all our money created by banks when they make loans, and add interest charges to them, our money supply must increase perpetually to ’service’ those loans, and in total, they can never be repaid. This causes the drive for ‘economic growth’ way beyond the needs for comfort and security, and the desperate competition for FINANCIAL survival, which now threatens our PHYSICAL survival!
Money created by government and spent into circulation carries no matching debt, and no added interest charges. Used in part to pay Basic Incomes, this would end the rat-race of debt-slavery and free people to work effectively for the radical changes needed. Banks must be prohibited from craeting money - legalised counterfeiting!