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TechnoratiOminous Arctic Melt Worries Experts
An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.
Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.
"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.
Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.
This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."
So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?
"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."
It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases.
What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice.
In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, like Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow.
More than 18 scientists told the AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year.
"I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here," said Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences. "This is going to be a watershed year."
2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways:
• 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.
• A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.
• The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation.
• Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total.
• Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.
- Surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean this summer were the highest in 77 years of record-keeping, with some places 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, according to research to be released Wednesday by University of Washington's Michael Steele.
Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted - something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades - it could add more than 22 feet to the world's sea level.
However, for nearly the past 30 years, the data pattern of its ice sheet melt has zigzagged. A bad year, like 2005, would be followed by a couple of lesser years.
According to that pattern, 2007 shouldn't have been a major melt year, but it was, said Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which gathered the latest data.
"I'm quite concerned," he said. "Now I look at 2008. Will it be even warmer than the past year?"
Other new data, from a NASA satellite, measures ice volume. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other Greenland numbers, concluded: "We are quite likely entering a new regime."
Melting of sea ice and Greenland's ice sheets also alarms scientists because they become part of a troubling spiral.
White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth, NASA's Zwally said. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting.
"That feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic warming is going to be faster," Zwally said. "It's getting even worse than the models predicted."
NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday was to tell scientists and others at the American Geophysical Union scientific in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data.
"We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them," Hansen said in an e-mail. "We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time - but it is going to require a quick turn in direction."
Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado startled their colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice in just a few decades. Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of 2007.
Bitz, unlike others at NASA, believes that "next year we'll be back to normal, but we'll be seeing big anomalies again, occurring more frequently in the future." And that normal, she said, is still a "relentless decline" in ice.
On the Net
National Snow and Ice Data Center on 2007 Arctic sea ice:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20070810_index.html
NASA's "Tipping Points" panel and slide show materials:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/tipping_points.html
© 2007 Associated Press
97 Comments so far
Show AllYou can submit all you like IKE, it don't bother me at all. If I don't want to read one,___ I don't read it. It's not like someone is paying for ink.
COMMENTS SHOULD BE LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON!
I lost my bet, 41 different bloggers. Not half bad and there is another good thread about this subject near the top of this page.
You need at least three seperate males with the desirables to insure a decent genetic pool MIFTIN. Of course if you have more than six, you won't have your Sundays off. __ No football.
Well, elites like myself should be sent into a safe, controlled environment where we can repopulate the species. For every elite man like myself there should be at least ten young females, chosen specifically for their sexual desirability.
vaudree
Unfortunately there seems to be a real bad correlation between being a 'good' politician (very rare occurrence..) and
getting assasinated for that. The ratio between the assassination of gruesome or murderous dictators like bosh et al.
and the assassination of people who literally give their live for the well being of their fellow humans, wherever they may
be, must be 1000 to 1. I cannot recall the any despot being assassinated in the last hundred years. On the other hand
there are numerous 'good' politicians that got shot out of existence.
Somebody told me once, the reason for that is obvious. Spiritual advanced people don't go around and shoot at whomever.
It is just the other way around.
Ask me whether there is hope
and I will answer
"As long as You breathe there is hope"
Bless You all.
Itsjustkarma says: In England in the 80ties when Georgie Boys Auntie Margaret Thatcher had fucked up the middle class and the country as a whole in good republican tradition, there was a slogan on every billboard all over the country.
According to Karlheinz Schreiber, Franz Strauss gave money to Schreiber money to travel the world and elect Conservatives. This was the time period when Mulroney, Regan/Bush and Thatcher came to power.
There have only been two Canadian Politicians assassinated. The first Canadian Politican to be assassinated was D'Arcy McGee .
The second Canadian Politican to be assassinated was Pierre LaPorte which brought about the October Crisis of 1970 and the Implimentation of the War Measures Act (like your Patriot Act). Tommy Douglas, the father of Medicare and grandfather of Keifer Sutherland voted against the implementation of the War Measures Act.
Stilba, if you wish to write Santa Claus, here is his address:
SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE H0H 0H0
CANADA
Strange how, instead of worrying about the adverse effects of Global Warming, everyone is fighting to put in their claim on Canada's Northwest passage.
There are even some Inuit who are looking forward to the melt because of all the mineral wealth they will find underneath the snow. Though most still worry about the lost of traditional occupations:
Thriving on Global Warming:
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/environmentscience/thriving_on_global_warming.html
Alberta Oil Sands (part one of the documentary Crude Awakening) :
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/environmentscience/crude_awakening.html
KEM -- Are you stopping at six, so you can have a day of rest?
I've heard that 6 days of sex makes one weak.
Send her measurments.
Sights and Sounds from the Amundsen in the Arctic...a video presentation by Elizabeth Grossman.
http://www.grist.org/feature/2007/12/13/grossman/index.html
ITSJUSTKARMA: Excellent Thinking!
Death penalty for any politician who causes mass death! So if the mofo's want to start a war, they have to pay for it with their lives!
Then there's your even better idea: Revolution! Break out the Guillotine for all tyrants!
Viva America!
KEM PATRICK: Six wives? I new I should have signed up when I lived in SLC!!!! But they had all those dern blue laws back then.....
I remember flying all night and getting to the 7-11 in the morning only to be thwarted in my alchoholism by a bunch of padlocks on the cooler doors. "You've got to be kidding me! " I would shout to no avail. I would go into the adjacent cooler tearing the metal shelving apart to get my hands on the locked up brewski. But at the checkout counter, the result was usually the same:
"It is the law sir, you can't buy beer until 3 pm." In Salt lake city in the 80's you had to be a planned drinker with booze in the trunk of your car. Or join one of them speak easy's like "Red's" and risk going to jail.
But I guess to have all that poontang like KEM gets it would have been worth it though. I guess I could've been one of those stealth "Jack" Morman right? LOL!
No matter how bad the outlook gets, KEM can always make us laugh!
Hey buddy, put my sister-in-law on the short list will ya? (she just split up and has three kids to feed.)
I agree with SaveTheEarthBlogger re the necessity to minimize or eliminate factory animal farming/consumption, which is hardly ever mentioned as a factor in global warming. And it's a huge one. But it could be stopped tomorrow if people would think about the consequences of their eating behavior multiplied billions of times and make a conscious decision to quit. I did it cold turkey, and, for me, it was a lot easier than giving up caffeine (which I'm still working on). The consumption of factory meat and dairy, etc., is so pervasive--people don't even think about what they're eating and the horrors endured by their "food" on the way to consumers' bottomless stomachs. I celebrated my 9th anniversary as a vegan on October 20 of this year. For me, it's the easiest thing in the world, and I can sleep at night and not gag like I used to when I bit into a bone or tendon in my Big Mac. I definitely don't want to turn this into a veg*n rant--please understand that I already did that for a few years, and it didn't do any good. All I want to do is gently point out a possible solution to part of the global warming crisis, as my good friend in Melbourne did for me 9 years ago. If you're out there, M, thanks again!
zookini
Marry? Sorry CoCo, I'm a devout Morman, I already got six wives, I need one day off a week. Maybe we just better stay good friends, like we are. I will put you on the waiting list though, you'll have to post your measurments for scoring purposes.
We don't really have to sacrifice to accomplish major C02 reductions. We just have to be smarter. Wonder if Big Oil likes this idea?
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Biodiesel_from_Algae_Oil
I remember a few tidbits from npr this morning. Looks like the Bali conference is going nowhere, mostly because of the US stall position. One little bit of hope is that China is starting to come out of its shell, and realizes that action on global warming is too critical to stall because "the US wants a free ride".
Also, the Europeans are going to boycott a GW conference scheduled by the White House because of the stall in Bali. What would Dubya want to talk about? That the NASA satellite photos, the NOAA data and the GFDL models from his own government agencies, the droughts, fires, monster cyclones... are all bogus because we're in the hands of God?
PS: itsjustkarma: You're effing nuts!
And thanks Coco for the link. I made all my friends sign the petition. I love Whales and as I live in Hawai'i have plenty opportunities to watch them. Even though there has been no Whale sighting this winter season so far. That is strange and
concerning because usually You can set Your clock after the first Whales. They must be in big trouble too. Talking about
the military...
We are in deep shit to a large degree by our Miltarism (Not Mine, I hate Military and I hope they all die, a bold statement for a Buddhist, but it's true), did anybody ever add up how much money we wasted globally in the 20th century for weaponry and systems to kill each other? Those 100 Trillion dollar would come in handy now. Imagine solar panels on every roof, fishponds
on every property, greenhouses everywhere and of course all those sandbags You need for the rising waters.
No there is only one solution in my eyes. Death penalty for every politician that has betrayed Human Mankind, not only the people
of his/her Nation, State or County. The filth is everywhere, from the rock bottom to the top. Guys like Kucinich seem to make
a difference, but so did JFK.
The other thing is that I believe Haarp is only one of many military contributors to 'inexplainable' changes in our atmosphere.
As long as there is a Military and an obsession with weapons and war, this country will go down, down, down. Then we can all
piss on it an move on into a bright future where Roachpublicans are no longer permitted.
First Impeachment, then public executions and a new constitution,this time one that cannot be screwed with by the Repiglicans.
Somebody stated earlier to be okay with some cleanup on the planet. I agree. We need to be cleansed from all that fascist
republican mindset. It is exactly that mindset that got us into extinction.
'Extinct the Extincters' (something like that).
Of course nothing will change. Didn't for the last hundred years and won't until the last human has died from his own medicine.
The Takers take us, the self sustained spirits, down with them into their republican shit hole. Hopefully the revolution starts
tomorrow!
In England in the 80ties when Georgie Boys Auntie Margaret Thatcher had fucked up the middle class and the country as a whole in good republican tradition, there was a slogan on every billboard all over the country.
"Have You Done Your Good Deed Of The Day? Have You Killed A Real Estate Agent Today?"
I am not kidding You. I must have pictures of that somewhere.
Today I would like to change that slogan into:
"Have You Done Your Good Deed Of The Day? Have You Killed A Politician Today?"
In a volunteer army everybody deserves to die.
Check out link for graphs.
NASA says 2007 second-warmest year ever, with record warmth likely by 2010
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/12/12/105126/02
Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño -- La Niña cycle.
... barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years.
Maybe COCO? Good question.
i've mentioned it before and i'll mention it again but no-one seems to take an interest in it: the haarp project in alaska. maybe that's the answer to the night shining clouds??? and a lot of our climate change........
What about our moon? Dang, I hoped we would have a biosphere on Mars to live in and now you tell me our sun is going to swell up and coook it.
KEM PATRICK says:
"We can kill every single bovine on the planet, including all of the Dzo's, junk every vehicle and shut down every coal fired plant and stop burning fossil fuel and stop burnng our forests and charcoal. The methane gas will still be released into the atmosphere in 2012. ~Bye bye~"
But if that doomsday scenario isn't enough to justify doing nothing, how about the following:
Scientists are now predicting the following events during the remaining life of our star:
In the next 1.1 billion years, its brightness will increase by 10%. This will super-heat our planet as a result of a severe greenhouse effect. All of the oceans on earth will boil away and all life will be destroyed.
In about 6.5 billion years, our sun will double in brightness and use up all of its supply of hydrogen fuel in its core. This will cause the sun to begin swelling as it uses hydrogen from the layers surrounding the core.
In about 8 billion years the sun will swell to 166 times its present size. This giant star will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and maybe even our Earth. Our sun will then be what scientists call a Red Giant because it will be very large and red in color.
From http://www.frontiernet.net/~docbob/sun.htm
Last year, an international company growing greenhouse tomatoes built the largest greenhouse in New England. (Maine) Prior to that, they had been in Texas. Backyard Beauties plans to eventually quadruple the size of the operation in Maine and expand to other vegetables. It appears they are moving north for a reason. Could it be they know what most Americans want to deny?
Do these eerie "night-shining clouds" in Hungary portend climate doom?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070629-clouds-picture.html
http://www.simplylivingsmart.com/
^^ One place to get info on preparing for the inevitable downfall of humanity^^
In a way there is a part of me that rejoices that the collective "we" will get just what we deserve.
Since no one (myself included) has done much of anything to stop the tyranny of ignorance that is currently 'in control' of things politically, what else did we expect to get.
It's time to take matters into our own hands figuratively and literally. If you care about your own survival, and I know we all do, it's time to unplug from the machine and just start living away from the Matrix. It will be hard, but it is the only way out..
The elites have underground bunkers to help them survive any surface cataclysms, but most of us little people do not. It would be totally unfair if those people who pull the strings and got us into this mess made it through and none of the rest of us did..
I have had the same ominous feeling since I was a child that this is probably the "end all be all" of human civilization. If any/many of us survive it will really be a miracle.
So when are all the folks going to start thinking about what to do about food and water in the now much nearer future? Greenhouse type production, water storage ect. It will get real hungry real soon for a lot of people and you thought Mad Max was fiction.
I guess you all can debate yourselves into a mandatory diet then we will start getting rid the hinderances and get to the needed actions, well that's a theory anyway.
"George Inc. is Johnny-on-the-spot in dealing with imagined threats. Show him some science and immediately smells a rat. George is retarded and dick is insane."
Actually, they more-accurately could be characterized as Realist-puppets, and over-optimistic regards 'science'. They believe a 'fix' exists already, in the form of: 1) orbiting Mylar reflector-shards or nuking-Mercury [both for 'cooling/shading', if ever-required]; and, 2) use of installations like HAARP to manipulate upper-atmosphere/ionization activity as 'amelioration'.
They assume 'other solutions will-present', also...
[Hope they are 'right' -- if 'insane', or otherwise.]
Well, thewonderingyou, permaculture is the way to go. We may have to make a few changes to the principles, but permaculture does allow for working within our microclimates, so I think it will work.
Seriously folks, check out permaculture - it may save your life.
I guess it's time to buy some property around here. I live in the mountains/hills surrounding Taipei City. Taipei City is in an area that used to be a lake: it's 8m above sea level, and it can safely be added to the list of major worldwide cities that'll be in trouble. On the other hand, I could be sitting on a nice oceanfront view if I could save up enough duckies to buy a plot on a hillside...
Whoops. Hillside. Landslide. Need I mention earthquakes? Aw crap, we'z all forked. My brother just bought some land down south that's 22m above sea level...maybe he needs a hand on his permaculture farm? Whoops. Typhoon waves. Aw crap again. I guess I should make my peace with Mr. Abram so I won't look like a hypocrite when I go in for gene therapy to grow gills...I've always fancied a life at sea.
Well written piece if it wouldn't be so sad.
What we need globally (but especially in US) is a paradigm shift.
Without that there is nothing to add. Even with a paradigm shift
many people will pay dearly for their mistake of having supported
a bunch of criminal morons in Washington.
The other image that comes to my mind is the outrage over people
that blow themselves up because they have nothing to lose, while
helping the 'Suicide Bomber' in the WH to blow up the whole planet.
But I guess that's okay. It's revelation time anyway, isn't it? Or Rapture
or what utter BS they can come up with.
Citizens arrest of the whole criminal meschpoke on Capitol Hill and
a moratorium on parliamentary democracy without ever allowing
the possibility of hi-jacking the executive or the whole Government
as a matter of fact, by any president, not just by a moron.
Wishful thinking I guess.
But hey, we all have to die, right? And why should future generations
reap in the benefits a republican mankind has generated in the last
eight years.
They should have to start from zero, like us.
No better. Because 'their' Ground Zero will be submerged in the Atlantic
Ocean they will even have to come up with their own 'Ground Zero'...
Blessed be the givers in this world.
HERE IT IS: www.whalesrevenge.com
come on all you common dreamers - sign the petition. there is also a game on their website which is fun.
KEM PATRICK
it's no good kem, we'll just have to get married and stop all this confusion we cause on here. apart from my pets and you, there is no-one else in the world who is in love with me. let's do it before it's too late........
look up whalesrevenge.com (or might be .org) and sign the petition.
Published on Monday, October 8, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Glacial Acceleration - A Sea of Troubles
by Paul Brown
It is hard to shock journalists and at the same time leave them in awe of the power of nature. A group returning from a helicopter trip flying over, then landing on, the Greenland ice cap at the time of maximum ice melt last month were shaken. One shrugged and said:"It is too late already."
What they were all talking about was the moulins, not one moulin but hundreds, possibly thousands. "Moulin" is a word I had only just become familiar with. It is the name for a giant hole in a glacier through which millions of gallons of melt water cascade through to the rock below. The water has the effect of lubricating the glaciers so they move at three times the rate that they did previously.
Some of these moulins in Greenland are so big that they run on the scale of Niagra Falls. The scientists who accompanied these journalists on the trip were almost as alarmed. That is pretty significant because they are world experts on ice and Greenland in particular.
We were visiting Ilulissat, Greenland, once a stronghold of Innuit hunters but now with so little ice that the dog sleds are in danger of falling through even in the depth of winter.
But it is not the lack of sea ice that worries scientists and should be of serious concern to the inhabitants of coastal zones across the world. Cities like New York and states like Florida are in the front line.
Scientists know this already, but just to give you some idea of the problem, the Greenland ice cap is melting at such a fast rate it is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break up.
Scientists say the acceleration of melting and subsequent speeding up of giant glaciers could be catastrophic in terms of sea level rise and make previous predictions published this year by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) far too low. The glacier at Ilulissat, which it is believed spawned the iceberg which sank the Titantic, is now flowing three times faster into the sea than it was 10 years ago.
Robert Correll, chairman of the Artic Climate Impact Assessment, from Washington told me:"We have seen a massive acceleration of the speed with which these glaciers are moving into the sea. The ice is moving at 2 metres an hour on a front five kilometres long and 1,500 metres deep. "That means that this one glacier puts enough fresh water into the sea in one day to provide drinking water for a city the size New York or London for a year."
Professor Correll, who is also director of the global change programme at the Heinz Centre in Washington said the estimates of sea level rise in the IPCC report in February had been "conservative" and based on data two years old. The range of rise this century had been predicted to be 20 to 60 centimetres, but would be the upper end of this range at a minimum and some now believed it could be two metres. This would have catastrophic effects for European and US coastlines.
He said newly invented ice penetrating radar showed that the melt water was pouring through to the bottom of the glacier creating a melt water lake 500 metres deep causing the glacier "to float on land. "These melt water rivers are lubricating the glacier, like applying oil to a surface and causing it to slide into the sea. It is causing a massive acceleration which could be catastrophic."
The glacier is now moving at 15 kilometres a year into the sea although in periodic surges it moves even faster. He has seen a surge, which he had measured as moving five kilometres in 90 minutes - an extraordinary event.
If all of Greenland melts, something we were previously assured would take thousands of years, but now could be hundreds, then sea level round the world would rise seven metres. That is without any contribution from the Antarctic, the glaciers of Alaska, the Rockies, the Himalayas, or the ocean water expanding as it warms.
So the talk of sea level rise should not be in centuries, it should be decades or perhaps even single years. For 10,000 years, during all of human civilisation sea level remained stable leading us to believe that coastlines remained roughly in the same place. A century ago the sea began to rise one millimetre a year, 20 years ago it had reached two millimetres and this century it has risen to 3 millimetres. This annual rise may not seem much but add hurricane storm surges and high tides and we are soon saying good bye to a lot of coastal settlements - like the Big Apple.
Switch forward a week from the helicopter ride to George W. Bush's meeting of 16 of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in Washington last month and what do we hear. We hear lots of rhetoric about how, along with terrorism, climate change is the biggest threat to the earth - although the catastrophic sea level rise facing our major coastal cities does not rate a mention.
But instead of decisive political action (as with terrorism) we get suggestions from the President of voluntary cuts in emissions, down to the government of each country, and then next summer another conference to discuss where we have got to - which on past form will be nowhere at all. It did not sound like the much needed change of heart from the President, but just another delaying tactic to tide him over until his term of office ends.
Although it may sound like it, the commentators in Europe are not singling out America for criticism, although it has to be said as often as possible that the US is the world's most profligate nation when it comes to fossil fuel consumption, AND has rejected the only legally binding international agreement that could do something about it. But Europeans are not doing enough either. We need convincing that our own leaders have enough political will to reach the tiny Kyoto targets that are the minimum first step to tackling this problem. The public hears the latest scientists' warnings that an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions is needed if we are to stave off catastrophic climate change, yet wait in vain for the policies needed to achieve them.
In my book, protestors wearing George Bush masks are pictured "fiddling while the earth burns." Maybe he is just the lead violinist of the orchestra.
Paul Brown was the environment correspondent for The Guardian newspaper for 16 years and has worked in newspaper journalism for more than 40 years. He has written extensively about climate change, population, biodiversity, pollution, energy, desertification, and ocean management. Brown has appeared in and written television documentaries on environmental issues, contributed to books on green politics, and is the author of several books on the environment.
Link:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/08/4409/
any questions?
Now I have to go find some clean air to breathe.
pac "Waterworld" plyer
Kem P:
Check out www.cmar.csiro.au. Cape Grim, Australia. They have graphs of ghg's and ozone depleters. They show methane flat since 2000. Methane in the atmosphere eventually oxidizes to CO2 and water, so its a matter of not releasing methane too fast. They haven't updated the graph since March, and it might take a while for arctic methane to mix in down under, but it shows an equilibrium (for now).
Their CO2 graph is scary. Looks like it might really take off. (Australia is a mess. Its essentially a desert continent, and global warming is making it even worse. Plus, their PM is one of the loudest "deniers" on the planet.
It's all about "stuff" and how much of it we have... let's try to reduce our stuff this Christmas.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
I'm a bit srprised you give Bush that much credit.
indeepshiitake is correct. Most of SE Asia is on fire right now. The monsoon was several months late and quit early making everything dry/dead early. The increased peasant population this year is evident. They are burning leaves and grass like there is no tomorrow. There is smoke everywhere, For a month, I scarcely have been able to breath.
My friends, I'm afraid the associated press is still understating everything. This was a nearly two year old submission by Jim Hansen director of nasa/goddard institute for Space studies:
http://ww4report.com/node/1611
This much of a loss of sea ice better be an unusual year or you can soon kiss Florida goodbye.
It's a lot later than we think it is.
(sorry to bum you out, we just bought a small two acre fish/fruit farm at elevation 43 ft; I wonder how long it's going to stay above water....)
Interesting posts above. In reading history I always wondered what would have become of us had we not had a George Washington or FDR when we needed him? Now here we are, not "things are going to get warmer" as one poster said, but rather on the edge of the biggest human evacuation/mass migration of all time, and who do we have in charge?
A complete idiot: GWB
That's what You get if You allow a minority of morons to rule the majority
of ignoramuses on this planet. Beyond comprehension...
No - don't worry. The Pope says this is all scare-mongering. Nothing unusual or threatening to see here. So just go on burning the fossil fuels, as the Catholic Church apparently hopes believers will continue to do. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=501316&in_page_id=181...
KEM PATRICK
I was wondering where You are that You're still on duty at this time. For me
it's easy as I am under Hawaiian Standard Time. Are You sleepless somewhere?
Well, actually we all should be sleepless by now, somehow...
As there is nobody else around I'd like to give compliments to You. I always enjoy
Your findings and the way You transport them. Talk To You Later.
I'm a little slow on the uptake at times. You're credabilty is 100%.
InPeachMint?
All that good Karma stuff, and you end with peach mint flavored ice cream.
You may have ruined your credability with some here.
May I throw in my two cents too?
As much as many of the statements seem to be true here, there is an important aspect left
out of the equation. Who does Mankind actually think it is? Not having to answer to anything?
Too smart to go extinct? Too religiously to be denied entry to 'Heaven'?
No folks, the truth is very simple. The Universe gives a rat's ass if we disappear. End of story.
As a matter of fact, nothing around You is around for eternity. Stupidity maybe.
No need to regurgitate the facts that surfaced on this thread.
Let me just mention something to You.
For how long do You think the whole picture is known to humanity? Since the days of the
'Club Of Rome', a well forgotten institution now, certain people have painted a bleak picture
of mankind's ways to 'domesticate' this planet. All came to the same conclusion. It is not worth
wasting time to save others, if those drag You down with them. So let all those Repiglicans all
over the world not only taste their own medicine, let them have it all.
In Buddhism (not intended as a lecture) it states that everything without exception is temporary.
Karma does not only apply as some sort of 'regulating' or 'judging' power. It is the smoothest force
in the Universe. It may well be THE Force in the Universe. Why? Because Quantum Physics shows
us that mind creates matter, not the other way around.
Alright then, if Karma is a valueless force that regulates each and every process in the Universe and
beyond, what does that tell us about our present condition?
That it is temporary and that the majority of Americans and as a matter of fact all humans on this
planet still have a choice.
No one will punish us if we fail. We will just disappear. And nobody will ever hear from 'Little Boy George & The Blasphemists.' and what damage they contributed to the extinction of mankind.
'What goes around comes around' is not a children's sing along song, it is the true force that created
everything around us. As for every single action is an equal strong reaction.
Somebody mentioned the 'Now' as good refuge to all this madness, but I urge whoever wants to
'close eyes!' to stand tall and to look into the eye of the coming storm. Only if we are prepared we
will master the upcoming challenges.
The solution is very simple and well known for thousands of years:
'Don't Do To Others What You Don't Want To Be Done To You'
'Do To Others What You Would Love To Be Done To You'
It's all good. You are all blessed. At least by me.
Try Our New Ice cream In Peach-Mint flavor...
Back to this serious shit. I read one of the dozens of articles on that website, (arctic methane gas.) A renouned geologist had a graph there, the years and amount of methane in the atmosphere from the years 1980 thru 2006. The red line goes almost straight up. It scares the crap out of him. He says five to ten years for the big burp is not an unreasonable number. It is a runaway scenerio, you start warming and bad things happen, it does not return to normal. It's like it got hot and we kept putting fuel on the fire and suddenly with the methane release, it's like tossing gasoline on the fire and the ice then melts faster and faster every year. It all occurs far faster and sooner than any had predicted and one day, KA-BOOM.
He also says it is not cows, or cars, or burning coal that is the biggest problem. It's termites!__ they consume 30% of all vegitation on the planet, and the little buggers fart, just like cows and you veggie bean eaters do. So maybe the solution is for all of us to have an Aardvark for a pet, instead of cat or dog.
Anyone look up Dzo? It won't be in your dictionary, It's also called a Heterosis, it's on the net.
I am ABBY. Oh-oh darnit, CoCo knows now you idiot.
Fatal attraction __ all over again.
No spirit ever dies, we will always know.
Gee Kem....I thought you were in love with me.....
DJ Pineover December 12th, 2007 8:02 pm:
"Time is melting away…How do we save the "greatest generation" from being remembered as the "dumbest generation" ?":
Well, the way I see it is this: If no one is left, who will be there to call us "the dumbest generation"?
Just wondering.
i knew you were jokIn CoCo, i'm In love wIth you.
CoMarc:
You have a lot of optimism in the face of worst case scenarios coming true decades earlier than predicted.
Methane levels have been constant for several years, but the clathrates are there, and permafrost temperatures are rising. At the least, large releases will greatly accelerate warming. The worst would be the quick end of us all.
Bali wants 25-40% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2020. 2.9 million gwh produced each year in the US by fossil fuel electric generation. One brand new French nuke should produce about 10,000 gwh. A mere 116 nukes built in 12 years would replace 40% of fossil electric, and would slightly more than double the number of US reactors in service. Conservation and rationing would help. Cheney might go for it if Haliburton got a piece of the action.
Then in 20 years or so start building the new generation reactors that will use (very litle) U235 and consume actinide waste from the older generation reactors. Instead of perpetual war, we would have perepetual reactor building. Power for growth, rail, hydrogen, desalination...
I know. Ain't happening. Not even one nuke. No conservation. Just talk, talk, stall, stall. Time to retire to Cape May and watch the ocean rise.
First, we should be clear about what might happen. Then we should grieve. Then we should be able to function.
The bottoms of the West Antarctic ice sheet and one section of the Greenland ice sheet are below sea level. This increases the chance of them partially breaking apart in, say, three weeks, just as the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed. I could see, just a guess, the oceans rising five feet some January, maybe in January of 2008, maybe in 2012 for all I know. A five foot rise would render many hurricane barriers across the U.S. inadequate. A 20 foot rise (the complete loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet) would top the barriers, and trillions of dollars worth of coastal buildings and infrastructure would become nearly worthless.
No one should say this is not possible in the next five years.
In addition, a section of Greenland ice sheet above sea level slid 3 miles in 90 minutes this year. We know little about the motions of ice sheets in warm weather.
Several factors indicate the possibility of runaway global warming in the future:
500 billion tons of methane can bubble up if Siberia melts.
When the very top inch of snow on an ice sheet melts, the snow changes to absorb four times more sunshine. This has happened.
Since 2004, 50% of the polar ice has gone.
In response to industrialization and expensive oil, the world's forest areas are being cut down for charcoal fires and for ethanol fuel production. Coal plant construction has exploded.
This all means, in the less-than long run, that we have a chance at looking at a 200 foot ocean rise. 70% of the world's total population will have to find new homes. Goodbye to Los Angeles, San Jose, Memphis, the Boston-Washington Corridor, London, Paris, Hamburg, Beijing and Mumbai.
That's why I grieve.
Will we be alive? Yes, probably. We'll have plenty of time to flee our homes. We'll try to carry on, and we'll find a way to try as a globe to fight global warming.
God bless the grief-stricken.
Too many critters for our poor earth. We are like a virus or parasite. If the host dies, we have no where to go and so we die off as a species. Our only hope is if the hosts immune system can control our spread while not killing us off completely, like with pandemics, starvation, wars over limited resources, etc. Global warming is just a manifestation of the immune response, like a fever, the only aspirin is to cut consumption.
Unless Americans and our European counterparts are willing to lower our standard of living and stop consuming so much, and cull some of the worlds critters, there is no hope for this civilization. Of course, China gets a lot of blame, but most of their carbon emissions are to produce goods for Europe and America, and they at least control their population of critters, so they are getting a bad rap.
Guess thats why the Gates Foundation and other tax free foundations have set up a doomsday seed vault in the Arctic. When the environmental crisis that ends civilization as we know it is all over, the elite can climb out of their environmentally controlled caves which have been stocked with comfort food, water, green houses and animals, and civilizations knowledge and culture, and use the seeds to start the New World Order, which will be a greener and friendlier order to allow us and our host to get along.
For the critters, I say eat up. Order that steak, medium or rare. Pepperoni Pizza, whatever, just do it. Drive your SUV to buy your groceries and go to work or just cruise the neigbourhood, and burn up whats left of the oil, crank up the heat or A/C, take that elevator to the 3rd floor, just do not complain while you do so.
Thats why they deny global warming, they do not want to alarm the critters to force them to do something about it. You see, they look forward to it as a necessary step for the new world order and a civilization which can begin stocked with all the best genes. In the meantime, our consumption helps them get richer, kind of like a super bubble, when it bursts they go into their caves for a few generations and then start another one.
There are so many artic cruises that rich people already enjoy. It is now time to think about condos and casinos on the top of the world.
Yet another positive feedback mechanism to worry about:
http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20071110190334747
There are growing concerns among scientists that fires - around the world - are part of a spiraling and destructive feedback loop: Hot, dry weather caused by climate change increases the frequency and ferocity of wildfires. These fires release into the atmosphere ever-larger amounts of particulates, pollutants and greenhouse gases that, in turn, result in even hotter, drier weather and more fires. "It's not unreasonable to argue there's a connection," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a noted climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.
Let's notice this is the Associated Press. That should put it above some opinion page article. Get a kick out of you, Kem.
Obviously, the SOS should have and did infact give a call a long time ago, but wasn't heeded. Picture is still beautiful, tho.
And the Dems are innocent???
ALL YOU GUYS KEM PATRICK, SACREDHIPPIE, ET AL
don't get your knickers in a twist!!! i'm surprised at you kem especially. i thought you knew me well enough to know when i'm joking. no-one, but no-one will upset me with words. i'm on a higher plain than that. only physical abuse will hurt me. as physical abuse has hurt this wonderful planet we live on. i just love to play with words and minds. maybe that constitutes abuse. therefore i am guilty. mea culpa. but i have never abused this earth. and that is the fundamental issue here. the insanity visited upon earth in the guise of progress. and the physical abuse in it's wake. the physical abuse of animals, humans, plants, trees, oceans, forests,lakes, mountains, insects. and for what? i don't know the answer to that. and i suspect i never will. but i live with earth and respond to the creatures that inhabit the same time and space. i apologise to any of you i might have offended mentally or verbally. i would never raise my hand physically toward you. as i would never raise my hand physically toward planet earth.
SAVETHEEARTHBLOGGER
horrible is not the word to describe what the factory farm animals endure.
i do not think a word has yet been invented to epitomise their suffering.
Oh no, Coco and I have fun here, she wasn't serous. __ I hope not. Dzo's don't pass a lot of gas. Raise Dzos.
COMARK You are arguing with the esteemed scientists who report otherwise about your comments. Guess you didn't read that article I suggested. Some of them say about five more years and the methane gas goes BURP and goodby humanity. Again, I sadly take their word for it,
Perhaps you are correct, I sure do hope so, but I don't know what qualifies you to offer those rosier words. How about coming back and cite the scientists by name, and tell us why they are wrong and you are right.
Time is melting away...How do we save the "greatest generation" from being remembered as the "dumbest generation" ?
Everyone Should be VERY scared. It is criminal what most of the Republican's in the U.S. House and Senate have done to halt any legislation to stop global warming. It is equally reprehensible that the current Republican U.S. presidential candidates have not mentioned and seemingly have no intention to take steps to stop this global warming catastrophe. In fact Rudy Giuliani has most of his current campaign funds coming from the oil/gas/coal corporations. How the heck can these greedy 'morons' stand bye and watch the world 'melt down'.
I totally agree with those who say human consumption of meat and other animal products MUST be minimized if not eliminated. Pollution from factory farms and the poor farm animals who suffer in them is horrible. I have been doing my part as a vegetarian for over ten years and don't miss meat, poultry or fish at all. Try meat substitutes like Tofurky. It's delicious, tastes like turkey and you won't miss the meat at all. There are even seafood substitutes that are just as good as the real thing. Go to a Whole Foods Market and check it out. Don't knock it until you've tried it.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE ANYMORE! ACTION MUST BE TAKEN NOW! THE VERY SURVIVAL OF ALL LIFE ON EARTH AND THE EARTH ITSELF IS AT STAKE!
http://theearthblog.spaces.live.com
sorry, I forgot the apostrophe in "world's"
Just thought I would jump on it right away to prevent COCO from doing so.
Will 'em peaches be growing in 2012?
Shouldn't hit submit, shouldn't hit submit, really really shouldn't hit submit.
Coco,
Why are you so concerned about spelling?
Don't you have any other outlets for your pent-up frustration and rage?
What a waste of time.
There are bigger problems in the world than someone accidentally hitting the wrong key when they are typing.
You like to be really sarcastic and make fun of other people, but when they give a little back, you get all upset. Excuse me, I have to go play the worlds smallest violin now.
Adding the methane gasses currently in the Artic will not end all life and turn out the lights.
What it means is that the rate at which we are warming will go up. In terms of immediate effects, you'd never notice. But the lines on the charts of how much we warm over the next hundred years or so will get a bit steeper.
Not a chance it will end life. Even if something ended 'human life', life is very resilient and will go on.
It won't even end human life. It will just keep getting warmer around here. It would probably, over the long term effect how many humans can live on the earth. And it would effect how the humans live, the 'quality of life'. But its not going to end all life or send us all back to the stone age.
When you are trying to figure out what the Republicans are thinking, this is important. They are not suicidal. Not even for short term profit.
When you listen to the Republicans, you get a real 'us versus them' mentality. They divide the world into those two camps. They don't think of what's good for everyone. They only think of what's good for the 'us' that they define.
Thus the drive towards military power. They fully expect the world to become a rougher more dangerous place. Their answer to that is more firepower. Thing of a gated community.
There will still be oil after peak oil. Its just going to be more expensive. Since they think of the 'wealthy' as their 'us', they expect to be able to pay for it. Want they want is to make sure its still available to their 'us' and that they have the firepower to keep the masses away from their 'us'.
Same goes for global warming. The main impact looks to be on food. There will likely be less food. There's likely to be more starving people. Food is likely to be more expensive. Again, they expect to be able to pay for it. What they want is the firepower to make sure they can still get it and to fend off the starving masses.
The Mayans don't say the world's going to end. They just say its the end of one grand cycle and the beginning of the next. The question is, what is the shift going to look like. Is it going to be an era of peace where we take everyone's concerns into account and reach some basic understandings. Or is it going to be an era of conflict where we are all fighting over scarce resources.
The Republicans are steering the world towards the era of conflict. They are maneuvering to make sure they have the power to live in that world. Thinking that the world is going to end and the Republicans are just too blind to see it misses the whole picture.
thank you for your articles about meateating. I am not ready to stop all meat BUT, I am going to fire up the crockpot and eat beans, split peas, and combine it with rice in the ricecooker.
This beans and rice recommended by those Hippies long ago and it is the diet of balancing carbohydrates and protein
This is cheap chepa cheap-
You cn support our favorite charities while eating guiltfree and saving a lot of time not going shopping.
Store rice and beans at home with spices and throw in a bone here and there and I will eat eggs too.
Yes everybody changing their diet will make a difference!!!
Will some account please count up how much oil carbon dioxide will be saved if a good number of us turned into Hippy eating habits.
Gee, I sincerely hope I didn't offend you COCO, I was teasing just a little. I think you are a swell gal and add so much good to this site.
Impeach Kem? i is supposed to be spelled I. So there.
KEM PATRICK
i might be a blonde but a) i do know what 'h' is. i was being obtuse, like you are on occasions, b) i am not in 'Britian', c)'bloddy' is not equivalent to using the f word in any country, be they civilized or not. even prince phillip uses the b word on occasions, and d) let's 'impeach' kem patrick for his mis-spellings
and believe me kem, in an effort to preserve my 'brian' cells i only eat vegetables that are organically grown.
On the ice cap thing, I read that same exact article, and there's no doubt the shit is getting as deep as the ice & snow is scarce. But once again, the message is just put so wrong. "Worry," "ominous," "the Arctic is screaming." And the worst one, the canary is dead, it's time to get out of the mine? Just exactly where are we going to go?
It's the old fear-based appeal again, and on this issue, I just don't believe that it works at all. In fact, I think this now reinforces the apathetic & treadmill behavior of the Americans at least. Better enjoy the convenience while we've got it. Get some shopping in, it may be all over soon.
What I find way more exciting & motivating are true stories, mostly from elsewhere & not easily available to the average American, about what people are doing to respond to the problem. This gives us something to do at least even as we figure out the problems are bigger than we thought, and getting worse faster than we thought. There is a new approach to automobiles in Norway.
And it turns out Norway & Denmark are both phasing out gasoline & diesel cars by 2010 (that's right), & gas stations soon after. And since they know how to do adaptive strategic planning, they'll likely get the job done, and on time. I find this prospect exciting, & far more effective in getting me to get off my butt & do something, than the old worry/ominous/screaming/dead canary routines.
Ed Johnson
Wildlife Biologist
Coco. Since you recenty migrated to Britian, you may wish to know, that the trem "Bloddy" is equivelant to using the word F##k in civilized countries. Be careful when crossng streets there, they drive on the wrong side of the road. The contaminated with chemicals kidney pies they eat, destroy brain cells.
Nice gals with bleached blond hair are not fundamentally natural to nature COCO. Think I'll let someone else explain for you what 'H' is.
Wow, we have gone from the ominous melting ice, to 2012, to mind altering drugs, to global warming, methane gas, big boobs, to cow farts and Dzos. Lets see how long it takes for the word impeach to arrive.
SCAREDHIPPY
what the f is herion? and what did he do to get doed?
KEM PATRICK
shut up about the bloody DZos. and stop being such a sexist!!! anyway, we've got it all wrong (or at least the mayans) take a look at this: www.geocities.com/astrologyages/maya2012.htm
btw scientists have said for years that we are beyond the point of no return. but no-one seems to take any notice of them. i for one don't give a monkey's uncle about what they say; i go by my own observations. and what i observe tells me there is something fundamentally wrong with nature.
scaredhippie,
i think 2012 goes better with mushrooms. heroin doesn't sound too appetizing.
http://www.levity.com/mavericks/terence.htm
DJB: According to your time-wave model, novelty reaches its peak expression and history appears to come to a close in the year 2012. Can you explain what you mean by this, and what the global or evolutionary implications are of what you refer to as the "end of time"?
Terence: What I mean is this. The theory describes time with what are called novelty waves, because waves have wavelengths, one must assign an end point to the novelty wave, so the end of time is nothing more than the point on the historical continuum that is assigned as the end point of the novelty wave. Novelty, is something which has been slowly maximized through the life of the universe, something which reaches infinite density, or infinite contraction at the point from which the wave is generated. Trying to imagine what time would be like near the temporal singularity is difficult because we are far from it, in another domain of physical law. There need to be more facts in play, before we will be able to correctly envisage the end of time, but what we can say concerning the singularity is this: it is the obviation of life in three-dimensional space, everything that is familiar comes to an end, everything that can be described in Euclidian space is superseded by modes of being which require a more complicated description which is currently unavailable.
DJB: From your writings I have gleaned that you subscribe to the notion that psilocybin mushrooms are a species of high intelligence, that they arrived on this planet as spores that migrated through outer space and are attempting to establish a symbiotic relationship with human beings. In a more holistic perspective, how do you see this notion fitting into the context of Francis Crick's theory of directed panspermia, the hypothesis that all life on this planet and it's directed evolution has been seeded, or perhaps fertilized, by spores designed by a higher intelligence?
Terence: As I understand the Crick theory of panspermia, it's a theory of how life spread through the universe. What I was suggesting, and I don't believe it as strongly as you imply, but I entertain it as a possibility, that intelligence--not life but intelligence-may have come here in this spore bearing life form. This is a more radical version of the panspermia theory of Crick and Ponampurama. In fact I think that theory will probally be vindicated. I think in a hundred years if people do biology they will think it quite silly that people once thought that spores could not be blown from one star system to another by cosmic radiation pressure. As far as the role of the psilocybin mushroom, or its relationship to us and to intelligence, this is something that we need to consider. It really isn't important that I claim that it's an extraterrestrial, what we need is a body of people claiming this, or a body of people denying it, because what we're talking about is the experience of the mushroom. Few people are in a position to judge its extraterrestrial potential because few people in the orthodox sciences have ever experienced the full spectrum of psychedelic effects that is unleashed. One cannot find out whether or not there's an extraterrestrial intelligence inside the mushroom unless one is willing to take the mushroom.
Now there is a %$*&*#@ surprise !
It wasn't just the Mayans that point to 2012 as being significant to humanity. 2012 is the year in which the galactic year ends, the sun falls into alignment with the center of the universe.
Nostradamus also predicted that the year 2012 would be the year in which humanity either rose to a new level or parished.
It's all pretty freaky when all the evidence around global warming is point to the year 2012 as a very significant time. The point of absolutely no return.
Time to either decide to do something, or start doing herion.
Oh what is a DZo? Very interesting animal and a swell Scrabble word when you can get the Z on a triple score block.
We can kill every single bovine on the planet, including all of the Dzo's, junk every vehicle and shut down every coal fired plant and stop burning fossil fuel and stop burnng our forests and charcoal. The methane gas will still be released into the atmosphere in 2012. ~Bye bye~
Three degrees COCO, __ not 38DD.
There is another yesterday's article here below this one, BEYOND THE POINT OF NO RETURN, that states we have already passed the tipping point.
Please take a look at the inconvenient truth about an inconvenient truth:
Meat Eating and Global Warming
www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html
and then take action!
KEM PATRICK
three degrees? that's a girl band isn't it from way back when.? (oops, showing my age!!) i sent you on another post a link to www.december212012.com so as you are talking about it presume you saw it. i remember about 8 years ago reading an article (i think it was in 'time' magazine) about someone who went to the arctic in the summer time only to find there was no ice. so is this just a pattern as indicated in the above article? somehow i don't think so. however, you'll be happy to know that there are lots of birds around here and i've seen a couple of bees. (well, wasps really) it's just all too sad and could have been avoided many years ago if greed hadn't entered into it.
Dr. Hansen has been saying 450 ppm is the last tipping point. Maybe its the 380 ppm we're at now.
Everything is in doubt. Civilization, our survival. If methane does start to spike, we gotta shut everything down except for the most basic food production, and attempt one of the global dimming strategies.
Three degrees.
And let's not forget the methane hydrate at the bottom of the seas. It won't take much rise in ocean temps for that to be released as well. It makes one wonder if Venus-like conditions aren't Earth's future. I really wish the radical right was correct on this one.
Cause for concern NIETZSCHE? Actually do IT CLARK KENT?
Google arctic methane gas, when the screen comes up, scroll down the the article titled, Arctic clethrotes contain 3,000 more methane than in our atmosphere.
If any wish to disagree, they are arguing with the qualified scientists who are listed as sources for the opinions and facts published.
It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.
Talk, talk, talk. How long must we wait for someone to actually do it?
Ominous? Well, yes, in the sense that a three-mile meteorite striking the earth is ominous. Yes, perhaps cause for concern. Maybe even a reason to begin some initiative designed to curb global warming. Possibly a reason for our leaders to get involved.
George Inc. is Johnny-on-the-spot in dealing with imagined threats. Show him some science and immediately smells a rat. George is retarded and dick is insane. Even the Reagan White House had a better grasp of reality.
That fits the equation, Bush and company are homicidal and Conyers sits on the HR-333 bill like a fool, fearing Nancy mayinsure he doesn't get re-elected. ___ Incredible.
The BBC also has an item that contains additional info, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7139797.stm
US opposition to mandatory emission caps is homicidal.