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TechnoratiCivilization's Last Chance
The Planet Is Nearing a Tipping Point on Climate Change, and It Gets Much Worse, Fast.
Even for Americans -- who are constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start -- even for us, the world looks a little terminal right now.
It's not just the economy: We've gone through swoons before. It's that gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of the cheap stuff that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn into gas, it helps send the price of a loaf of bread shooting upward and helps ignite food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about the "limits to growth" suddenly seem ... how best to put it, right.
All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.
There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As in parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.
So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.
In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.
And suddenly the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. It appears that we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.
And don't forget: China is building more power plants; India is pioneering the $2,500 car; and Americans are buying TVs the size of windshields, which suck juice ever faster.
Here's the thing. Hansen didn't just say that if we didn't act, there was trouble coming. He didn't just say that if we didn't yet know what was best for us, we'd certainly be better off below 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
His phrase was: "if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever-more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto protocol, which was already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)
We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.
And we have, at best, a few years to short-circuit them -- to reverse course. Here's the Indian scientist and economist Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year (and, by the way, got his job when the Bush administration, at the behest of Exxon Mobil, forced out his predecessor): "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."
In the next two or three years, the nations of the world are supposed to be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto accord (which, for the record, has never been approved by the United States -- the only industrial nation that has failed to do so). When December 2009 rolls around, heads of state are supposed to converge on Copenhagen to sign a treaty -- a treaty that would go into effect at the last plausible moment to heed the most basic and crucial of limits on atmospheric CO2.
If we did everything right, Hansen says, we could see carbon emissions start to fall fairly rapidly and the oceans begin to pull some of that CO2 out of the atmosphere. Before the century was out, we might even be on track back to 350. We might stop just short of some of those tipping points, like the Road Runner screeching to a halt at the very edge of the cliff.
More likely, though, we're the coyote -- because "doing everything right" means that political systems around the world would have to take enormous and painful steps right away. It means no more new coal-fired power plants anywhere, and plans to quickly close the ones already in operation. (Coal-fired power plants operating the way they're supposed to are, in global warming terms, as dangerous as nuclear plants melting down.) It means making car factories turn out efficient hybrids next year, just the way U.S. automakers made them turn out tanks in six months at the start of World War II. It means making trains an absolute priority and planes a taboo.
It means making every decision wisely because we have so little time and so little money, at least relative to the task at hand. And hardest of all, it means the rich countries of the world sharing resources and technology freely with the poorest ones so that they can develop dignified lives without burning their cheap coal.
It's possible. The United States launched a Marshall Plan once, and could do it again, this time in relation to carbon. But at a time when the president has, once more, urged drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it seems unlikely. At a time when the alluring phrase "gas tax holiday" -- which would actually encourage more driving and more energy consumption -- has danced into our vocabulary, it's hard to see. And if it's hard to imagine sacrifice here, imagine China, where people produce a quarter as much carbon apiece as Americans do.
Still, as long as it's not impossible, we've got a duty to try to push those post-Kyoto negotiations in the direction of reality. In fact, it's about the most obvious duty humans have ever faced.
After all, those talks are our last chance; you just can't do this one lightbulb at a time.
We do have one thing going for us -- the Web -- which at least allows you to imagine something like a grass-roots global effort. If the Internet was built for anything, it was built for sharing this number, for making people understand that "350" stands for a kind of safety, a kind of possibility, a kind of future.
Hansen's words were well-chosen: "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.
Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won't exist, at least not for long, as long as we remain on the wrong side of 350. That's the limit we face.
Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and the author, most recently, of "The Bill McKibben Reader," is the co-founder of Project 350, devoted to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. A longer version of this article appears at Tomdispatch.com.
© 2008 Los Angeles Times
181 Comments so far
Show AllSuit yourself, it's still a free country and you're a big boy now.
Yeah ~PERESENCE~ you nullified Atcheson. You wrote he may be wrong. You wrote a lot of things about this issue and his article. ___ None good. Why? What good did you accomplish? All you have done here is cast doubt on the issue, which I believe is the most important issue humanity faces and you tell me to "calm down, or use different words.
Who are you? Do I tell you what words to use? I asked you tell us why Atcheson may be wrong, because you said he may be and you refuse to explain why he may be wrong.
Bet you're glad this thread will be in the archives tomorrow. You have made a fool of yourself on this one, I am very sorry to say.
Go back up to the Herman Daly article and tell ~Galen~ she's exaggerating the issue of the methane gas too. There she wrote that she had read a book about it and said that I hadn't posted just how serous the methane gas issue is. Then you thank her for her post and comments. LOL, but it isn't funny.
How more serious could I possibly be? I think you are all nuts here.
Bullshit again.
Exactly where and why is Atcheson wrong?
Strange how you nullify the science of John Atcheson, but your science and that of those scientists who say a nuclear war would create a total life killing nuclear winter are correct.
Again, you never told us why Atcheson is or may be incorrect. You keep saying I'm wrong, but It is not my opinion that matters. I didn't write Atcheson's article, he did and I believe he's correct and you don't, but you refuse to say why he's wrong.
Let us condense John Afcheson's article into one sentence.
"Twice in Earth's history, methane gas which released from the soil obliterated almost all life on Earth within a few hours time, it is about to happen once again if we don't stop burning fossil fuels."
You have an argument about the condensed version?
I never metioned nuclear winter, you did and that is assuming a nuclear war would create a nuclear winter. That would depend upon how many bombs were detonated, etc, A nuclear war is serious, ___ we are not having one.
Earth could be struck by a giant asteroid, or sucked up into a black hole. Are those our most serious issues that we have any control over? I think not.
We ARE HOWEVER having global warming and the arctic perma-frost is beginning to thaw. Your nuclear winter isssue is another Red Herring argument to change the subject of this article and the one I offered.
The article is about global warming and methane gas, not nuclear winter. I have said the thawing of the Arctic's perma-frost is our most serious issue and you have berated me for saying that. I am not aware that we are about to have a nuclear winter, a nuclear war is always a possibility. If we have one that would be just as serious and perhaps even more so. Do you wish to talk about nuclear war prospects? That is not the issue here.
We can prevent nuclear war and we can also prevnet the methane burps if we act soon. (That's the issue and it is our most serious issue) and your first posts scoff at it, attempt to brush it off and that is harmful. What earthly good have you accomplished here on this thread? All you have done is create doubt whenever possible. Hope you are pleased with yourself.
The year 2,100 was an estimate, written four long years ago and now the global warming is doing far more harm and far, far more quickly than any ever imagined. You just wish to argue and attempt to show others how smart you think you are,___ as ~GLASNOST~ so well noted.
You still have refused to answer my repeated question ~Namaste~.
It is a fair question and one you yourself raised by sayng John Atcheson may be wrong. ___Where is he wrong? ___ Be specific, his article was published four years ago, in the past year even his predictions are now found to have been optomistic.
An atomic war will not eradicate ALL life on the planet. A major methane gas release will. You attempt to change the subject with that question or statement. That's what trolls do ~Namaste~.
You yourself stated here that you wish to move this issure to the middle of the road. For what sensible or reasonable purpose would anyone wish to do that? ___ There is none, there is no other issue of this importance. ___ If there is, name it. What problem we may have control over could eraticate ALL life on the planet, all life.
As I have stated, you absolutely refuse to reply to the question I have asked and you are being obtuse about it and it is so strange, unless you are a troll. Are you? You are acting like one.
One FINAL time: If you disagree with John Atcheson's article, what exactly is your objection, the time frame?
He stated once it starts there is no turning back. Has it already begun? ___Maybe. Will it begin in five years, ten years, twenty? We don't know and it may be five or ten. In fact the current scenerio shows it may be very soon and you wish to move it to the middle of the road. Road Kill perhaps?
You also are well aware that my analogy of the school children story was a hypothetical illustration to make a point. So don't come on with your "fear of scaring the chldren." You are evading the issue and you know it. Hopefully others can see through your evasiveness also.
The entire point is, the Methane Gas issue is the most important issue we have. Or it should be, there are none others of that seriousness.
What makes you think ~HAKORI~ is going to pay any attention to what you write ~NAMASTE~?
On this thread, you stated that the author of an article I'd posted MAY be wrong. You have been asked numerous times to state precicely why you felt he MAY wrong with his deductions and final conclusions on an important issue. You refuse to do that to defend your opinion, or to even acknowledge the question asked of you.
When someone is like that, I personally no longer pay any attention to them. Don't you realize how rude and obstinate you are being about it? ___ Apparently not. I'm certainly not perfect, but if I err, I admit it.
If you should return here, I'm certain you will still refuse to reply to the fair question with any sembelance of deceny, respect, or offer a sensible answer. You have lost my respect for you. I'm sure you don't care and don't bother replying to me about anything on other threads in the future, you will be wasting your time.
I think we're all starting to realize, at least the ones of us are paying attention and accept the scientific evidence, we're all screwed. It's probally too late regardless of what we do, which will be more of the same. The carbon is going to keep going into the atmosphere and the methane will too. Yes some humans will survive, but civilization will not; the ones who are left will be thrown back into the stone age and have to kill or be killed just to survive. I know it sounds like a bad 70's disaster movie, but it's where we stand. Enjoy the party while it lasts. It's about over.
Okay thank you.
KEM PARTICK -
Plz excuse my butting-in again. I'll butt-out on this thread, after this.
I see you getting drawn into an argument about highly specific, global warming details, with some folks who seem to want to logically best you in your [admittedly shakey absolutist] claims about those details -- possibly in order to deflect or obscure your right-on, common sense concerns about the overall issue of global warming - which in turn may reflect their unstated wish/need to maintain a system that benefits not only their ego outlooks of Man-as-God, but (more likely) their personal greed dreamings.
May I suggest something, Kem? Don't hang-up your basic position of concern about global warming by getting lost in insoluble debates about predictive detail phenomena as 'methane burps,' etc., with science-talking types who, for whatever reason, easily loose sight of the forest for the trees.
In your responses to your jousters, stay focused only on reasonably-verified data and on remedial propositions drawn from that data:
[1] most earth surfaces are generally warming, by objective measurement
[2] most field-relevant scientists who are peer-reviewed published on this subject, hypothesize that certain human activities are probably, largely, if not entirely, responsible for the planet's warming; and agree further that:
[3]the warming's outcome doesn't bode well for human affairs; and that therefore humans should do what they can to alter their potentially-causitive behaviors, even if deeper scientific certainty [established theory] about the warming's causality is not yet possible
[4]given what degree of scientific uncertainty may exist RE human causality, admit, therefore, that it is reasonable that governments not correctivley err in an absolute extreme -- one that demands immediate economic trnasformation and possible collapse human economic institutions, but that:
[5] barring that policy direness, humans and their governments should and must do whatever else they can meanwhile, even to the point of widely-shared transformational pain-of-changing habits.
If you make your argument more this way, Kem, your jousters will have liitle to say that's rational in response. They will have to defend taking existential risks that fly in the face of hard-wirded, body prudence.
[3]
I don't remember the bet ~Ruthu~. Help me.
What time ~Presence~? I said we don't have much time left. The mountans wore down over millions of years. Is that all you have to argue about now, the word MUCH? Grow up!
What is your opinion of the findings of the geologist ~John Atcheson~? The man you say MAY be wrong. Where and exactly why is he wrong?
Kem,
I won our bet.
See, ~PRESENCE~ you write
"I don't believe you've provided a reasonable level of proof of anything."
"I" never attempted to prove anything. I gave the link for a very important article written by a man who has spent his enitre adult life studying the planet. It's HIS words I refer to and sometimes repeat. Don't argue with me bud, address HIS words if you wish to be credible.
Of course you cannot with any credibility and that is precicely why you refuse to so so. You are not fooling anyone and I still wonder what your point is?
BTW, The Smoky Mountains do not have antying to do with the global warming problem, which began in ernest only 200 years ago.
I didn't ask for a yes or no answer. I asked if (you could explain why they are wrong.) They give us a few short years, maybe a 100, maybe 50, and now in the last few months, the scientists are saying they screwed up and it's much less time than anyone had predicted. They can see the methane spewing out of the ground and water.
Don't argue the article's author, be obtuse. I guarnatee you any person with any sense at all can see you are being so. Some may agree with you.
I see you still refuse to argue with the geologists John Atcheson or Michael Benton and tell us specifically and technically, why they are wrong. What is your point?
They are among the most highly regarded geologists in the entire world and you say their findings are perrhaps flawed, or in a preliminary state and we need more studies. They say we'd better act now. And that article was first published four years ago.
There is another article here on C/D. "World Co2 levels are now at a record high." There are now large areas of the Pacific ocean near California, where methane is blowing out of the water like volcanic action. The icy cold water stream, or under water river, from the Antarctic to the Arctic has recently changed course.
Try blogging some of your opinions there too. Only two trolls showed up there, ~Misanthorpe~ and ~Jstevens~, several blasted them.
You still have refused to state why the geologists are wrong and give credible evidence that they are. Until you do ~PRESENCE~, and offer some sound technical or scientific evidence to dispute theirs, you are just makng a complete fool of yourself on this thread. It's not me you should be arguing with.
A ten year old child could easily understand the issue and realize we had better act on it, unless someone can dispute the evidence provided by that author of that article with better evidence.
I happen to believe the author and the hundreds of other scientists who totally agree with him. You can choose to doubt him and write he "may or may not be correct." Suit yourself. But your writing denials here, based upon your opinions is harmful.
If any should doubt the methane gas issue is very important ___ and I know of no other issue of more importance. Lets try to make it very simple.
1. Global warming is a fact. Glaciers are melting and disappearng all over the planet. The ice and snow on Greenland is quickly disappearing. The same scenerio in occurrng in the Arctic and Anarctic.
2. Because of global warming, the Arctic perma frost is rapidly thawing, that condition worsens evey day. It has never been so ice free in the past five million or more years.
3. Unfortuantly, there are a estimated 400 gigatons of methane gas in the Arctic perma-frost. It is safely locked up there, 'unless' the perma-frost thaws. As it now is doing.
4. When enough of that methane gas escapes into our atmosphere, it will trigger global warming like the Earth has not experienced for millions of years. Twioc eprevioulsy it did occur and almost all life was killed off, only bacteria and some deep sea life remained.
5. That escapin garctic methane will cause far more ocean methane gas to escape into our atmosphere and there is no way to prevnet that from occurring, or to stop it, once it starts. Once it starts, there is no turning back, no do-overs, it will play itself out until we can no longer breathe and every living thing on the planet could be obliterated within a few short hours, perhaps one hour or less.
6. We may have the time to turn it around and prevent that disaster from occurring. We do not have much time left to act. There are viable solutions. I personally find that to be of MOST importance. Some people, many in fact, don't want to believe it, or hear about it. They argue it and or deny it.
That's it, ___ believe it or not.
Siouxrose: You have a deal. Thanks!
I realize you will not answer the fair questions ~PRESENCE~. I'm not replying to you actually. I'm writing my posts so that if any read these comments they will see there is another side to the coin other than your's and Wildham 19s.
Don't "over-react" now bud.
Once again ~PRESENCE~ or ~NAMASTE ~ you dodge the issue. If that scientist, geologist is wrong, along with all of the others who came to the same conclusions he has, (based upon proven scientific evidence),___ prove they are wrong instead of just saying they MAY be wrong. And you have said just that in your May 13, 5:14 post. You wrote, "he may" and then "(or may not)". Why do you do that, ___what exactly are to attempting to prove Namaste?
Did you honestly answer what you thought the children may believe, after hearing what someone said, words I wrote about the methane gas issue? ___No.___ You refsed to answer, you changed the subject and said if so and so, blah, blah. That was my qestion and wording. It could be said exactly like that to anyone, any child and be absolutely correct.
You ask what can we do about it? Have you read all of the posts here? There are many inpotant things we can do and which we must do. Do you disagree with those suggestons? Your childish comments of leaving the refrig door open, etc, etc, are just another example of your attempts to make a joke, or brush off this most important issue. ___ Why, what is your purpose?
You berated me for saying the methane gas issue is the most important humanity currenty faces. I asked if you know of a more important issue that will adversely effect ALL life on the planet and you refused to reply to that also. You cannot answer that intelligently and give any issues of more importance. So why did you berate me for what I wrote?
I am very surprised at your posting such nonsense Namaste. I was glad you had returned to blog here, but now I wish you had not done so, you are writng things that are harmful. ___Why? I feel sorry for you now.
PEACEMAN: You sweetheart, you! If you care to render a true opinion of my work, I will GIFT you with a 3 page astrological report. Obviously I am not a fair judge of my own material... much of it does seem to 'choose' me insofar as coming through as "automatic dictation," i.e. channeling.
PUCK TWAIN: Did you miss the 140 long thread when a poster by the name of RON attacked me for sharing astrological material in the forum? If the subject is truly pertinent to an article, I PROMISE I will relate more about this very trying phase of Age Change Transition. It is the cosmic equivalent of Britain's "Changing of the Guard." The choreography leaves a lot to be desired given that for Pisces, the sign of sleep, dreams and deception to yield to Aquarius, that which celebrates the spark of the Divine within every individual along with a thirst for Truth and knowledge, SLEEPERS MUST LEARN TO RECOGNIZE THE AWAKENED STATE.
If my spiritual brother "Presence" has read this far I am sure he will resonate with the above words.
It is so easy for someoen to blilthly say , "Science is not always correct". Yeah, well that's like saying the guy who discovered the Earth revolves around the sun MAY be wrong, or Newton's second law of motion MAY be wrong.
~PRESENCE~ It has been well validated that twice in Earth's history almost ALL life was wiped out within hours by massive "burps" of methane gas. The proof of it is right here in the rocks and soil. It is about to happen once again. I find that to be of most importance and that comment IS my personal opinion. You may believe it is not the most important issue if you choose and that's YOUR opinion.
However, I would ask you to consider this. What do you honestly suppose a group of 9 to 15 year olds would consider the MOST important issue we humans should be addressing, ___ if they were told this:
"Presently class, the global warming problem is causing the Earth's Arctic to thaw, there is every good reason to believe, based upon scientific evidence, that over 400 gigatons of methane gas locked up in the Arctic's perma-frost will be released into the atmosphere within a few short years.
When that occurs, almost all life, save some bacteria and cockroaches will be obliterated and you will ALL die and not have a fair chance at life.
Additionally class, we adults and world leaders have the option of trying to prevent that from happening, IF we initiate a world wide program and have a massive effort to use clean energy and stop burning coal and fossil fuels. Buttt, we adults may just decide to not attempt to do that, due to monetary, political, big business concerns, or decide it's not that importnat an issue and we don't really care that much about what happens to YOU class, our next generation of humans." You really have no important say in the matter, you're just children after all."
I do wonder if they may feel it is an important issue and perhaps the MOST important, as I personally know of no other issue that will have that dramatic an effect on humanity or our planet, save an all out atomic war and even that would not be as severe or final. Perhaps you know of more important issues. Your personal likes and desires don't count and neither do mine.
Now if any wish to dispute that the strong potential of the methane burps is a fact, please do so and show scientific evidence it is incorrect science. I have asked you two to do that and still you come back with inane comments and refuse to do so.
As to my belief it is the MOST importnt subject, that's how I feel and I won't condemn you for not believing it. I certainly will say, I believe you don't display a great deal of good common sense however, unless you can show us a more important issue. You got one that makes a lick of sense?
Siouxrose,
Thanks for the link. I'm buying both books.
Where exactly am I over-reacting and why do you assume I need calming down? I merely replied to your post and disagree entirely with what you wrote. Go back and read it.
Why write he MAY be wrong, what good purpose did that serve. If one read your enitre blog it leaves doubt and you agreed with the troll too. Why not say the geologist is very likely correct, as he's not the only scientist who came to the same conclusions.
Who are YOU or I to say he MAY be right or wrong. Tell us "exactly" where his findings are wrong, or NAY be right or wrong. You refuse to do that. Your post here is harmful.
When someone says somethingg may be wrong, then It means it may be incorrect and MAY NOT be correct. Now it's a controversy. There is no logical or sensible argument on the issue. Unless you or someone else can offer one. No one has yet.
Of course this thread is already pretty long and old fashion wise...something like that should really get the commentary going earlier...
Sioux Rose: You're not going to give us a synopsis and get a living Mythology going?!
I've been targeting Wendall Anthony of the NAACP here in Detroit as a potential Rosa Parks Spark on impeachment hearings; of course to no avail as of yet. Point being here that we should all be building our credability up, as Scott Ritter, as well as Adam Koesch(sp?) of IVAW, has called us out to do, and then look out for your Rosa Parks opportunity that only your talents can provide; kinda of like the Hobbits ability to carry The Ring...and Spark that larger Flame.
Oh, well, guess I'll put it on the wish list and the other on the shopping list with Cassandra...good to know there's structure around it somewhere, thanks for the heads up.
Your priority list is not relevant to the issue of the methane gas either. That's like saying if your child is bleeding to death, you stop at McDonalds for soft drinks then sit there and tell some jokes before you continue on your way to the hospital. Don't worry, be happy. ____ Grow up.
~Presence~ Your comment that the temperature has only risen one degree in the past decades is irrevelant to the issue of the obvious fact, that the Arctic ice is thawing and that has not occurred for millions of years, not anywhere near the extent it has in just the past two years. There is no relief in sight either.
Ice bound lakes are now ice free and many just disappeared, like flushing a toilet. The once trapped methane gas beneath the frozen waters is now releasing into the atmosphere.
It is not the Arctic Methane gas that will eradicate all life, that gas release is the "trigger" that will set off global warming the likes of which we have never seen. Then the really huge amounts of methane gas now safely locked in the ocean's seabeds will erupt and bloom out into the atmosphere and do so suddenly___ then it will be over.
That disaster could happen in fifty years, or twenty, or ten. The time we have left to act of course, is a guess. Maybe two years? We don't know the exact time, ___ all we know with absolute certanty is, it will happen if we don't try to stop it.
~PRESENCE~ You are just as bad as Wildham 19. Maybe worse. You are as usual just blathering cute and words with an attempt to sound intelligent and informed.
If you disagree with the geologist, state exactly where and why you disagree. Your comments about what he wrote are wrong, you just gave a personal opinion. He has scientifically proven it happened twice previously here on earth and it will DEFINENTLY happen again, if and when the Arctic perma-frost thaws and it's thawing and thawing far faster than any had predicted.
He's not the only one who has proven that. Hundreds of other geologists have also. Your post is not beneficial in any way, it's very harmful in fact. ____If you wish to agree with the troll, argue the article and state where the author is wrong, or show your ignorance again and keep it up if that's what suits you.
And if ~Wildham 19~ is not a troll, he will address the article also and prove the author is incorrect. If it walks like a troll and talks like a troll, it's a troll.
Everything I have written about the Arctic's methane gas, I derived from articles written by highly regarded scientists, so if you disagree with what I wrote WILDHAM 19, you are disagreeing with them, ___ not me. Are you qualfied to do so? Please do argue it and show all here your ignorance.
It does not require a trained scientist to observe what is now happening world-wide from global warming BTW. A fifth grader with an IQ over 70 could see and easily understand it's a very serious problem and one we'd better act on and do so soon.
Here, ~WILDHAM 19~ I'll help you out and post the link again. Read it, it takes three minutes. Bill McKibben may not be a scientist, nor does he have to be to write a sensible and informative article on the subject.
You berat me for writing, "if we don't correct the global warmng problem we all are going to die, humanity and all other life on the planet will become extinct." Why berate me for stating that? That is not something I dreamt up.
I agree FULLY with the author of this article I will post once again for your convenience. That's exactly what the author who IS a highly regarded scientist states, he says it is our most serious problem and we'd better act to prevent it. __I agree.__ What's YOUR valued and scientific opinion? And please don't bother to tell me to have a nice day. I will have one without your abviously snide urging.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html
There it is smart guy, let's hear your intelligent arguments___ if any.
~WILDHAM 19~ Where is it that You detect anger or fear from me. I do display scorn, even anger, only for the trolls who come here and who DENY global warming and the methane gas problem is a fact and that the Greenhouse effect is caused by mankind.
All I have actually done is offer the article of an expert and offered some ideas of how we could perhaps solve the problem. There is no anger or fear there. I am concerned and believe that is an appropriate emotion considerin gth econsequences and no different than the author of this article.
You have disagreed with me previously on this issue and said the "methane gas" is NOT a problem. Don't argue with me about it and attack me as you contimnue to do. Argue with the author of the article I posted. You refused to do that previously and you still do.
What exactly is YOUR opinon about the Arctic methane gas escaping if we don't correct the Greenhouse effect in or atmosphere and the resulting global warming? Attacking me is irrational and sensless. What is YOUR opinon on the methane gas issue? If you agree with the author you are agreeing with me. If on th eother hand you disagree, ___state why__ you disagee and we can then debate the issue sensibly.
I do not expect you to do so because you obviously are a troll who only wishes to atttempt to discredit me. If you suceed in that endeavour, you help to cause controversay with the issue and you win, along with Exxon and other mega corporatins who love your type blogging comments here. They even pay people to do that.
KEM PATRICK,
Again, while I appreciate your passion on this topic, I do not understand what motivates all your anger and fear. Perhaps it's a sense of helplessness? Despair?
KEM PATRICK, I am well aware of the potential methane release from within the permafrost of the northern latitudes. I live in Alaska. And, I have been working with conservation issues for the past 35 years.
You have stated that you are no scientist; that is self-evident. But, when you brandish potential outcomes of a warming climate - based on inferences of a chaotic system - to be a certainty, you go too far. Good science requires tremendous patience, an open-mind and the ability to communicate ideas effectively with others.
KEM PATRICK, why are you so offended by contributors that do not immediately bend to your zealous, domineering points-of-view? I'll admit, you do sound pretty convincing to the already convinced, but what's your plan for persuading people with differing points-of-view or alternative ideas and experiences ?
I have read Bill McKibben for years. And, I enjoy reading his work, but McKibben is not a scientist nor a conservationist. He is an environmentalist and nature writer. To me, McKibben seems an intelligent, decent human being. He is deeply influenced by Christianity, the cause of social justice and a sense of optimism. Yet, some of his words, especially in this essay, are naive. For instance, McKibben wrote, "Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world." That statement is incorrect. When agricultural based civilization emerged, it was a survival subsistence and very, very hard work. If you visit a Third World, pre-industrialized nation, you can witness all the back-breaking manual labor agriculture requires.
All civilized cultures are based on agriculture, and they are all non-sustainable. Civilization constantly borrows from the future to enrich the present. Most likely, in time, the very structure of agricultural civilization will collapse under its own weight. But, in the mean time, if the industrialized nations implemented drastic reforms (which seems doubtful) that would seriously curb the burning of fossil fuels in the next few years, the world's economy could collapse. Then, you would not need to worry about the methane release problem anymore.
Of course, we should work for cleaner energy, less pollution, better food, defend the wildlife and strive for greater harmony and less bitterness among people. All those things are important and worthy of our best efforts.
Have a GREAT day!
If time permits, I'm certain that someday we will find evidence that humanity indeed did inhabit Mars and it was a highly advanced civilization capable of space travel.
All over this world, different tribes of humanity have near identical history stories which we now call myths and fables, stories about our past and how we evolved. For example, the Aztecs at first thought Cortez was a returning God. Even in the cave dwellings of humans who lived here millions of years ago we find paintings of space ships, or flying saucers and UFOs we now name them.
Anyway, unless we solve the methane gas problem, we aren't going to ever know where we humans originated from.
Hi Kem -
Since I have no direct info, I mostly meant my Mars analogy as sardonic speculation -- but I appreciate your reply.
In attempting to deal with the craziness of us humans it sometimes helps me to create black humor -- like Vonnegut does [better] -- and dispel the tension by momentary laughs.
But I am serious when I say IT WOULDN'T SURPRISE ME if we someday discover there is an energy force in Creation, akin to a COSMIC VIRUS, that on Earth goes by the name of Greed, that tends to wipe out otherwise-intelligent planetary life forms.
Actually, the idea of Martian Republicans makes me cringe just as much as laugh.
Best Regards.
KEM & GLASNOST: Author Gordon Michael Scallion who PREDICTED Hurricane Andrew's timing and coordinates (he has or had an "earth changes" newsletter) wrote a book entitled, "Notes from the Cosmos." He details what happened to erase life on Mars and true to my own astrological perspective, the population opted for a militaristic shield that eventually imploded and killed all those living on the planet.
True or cautionary tale it reveals one thing that's valuable, "He who lives by the sword dies by it." War and "using weapons to protect against war" never amounts to anything that can celebrate or sustain LIFE.
~GLASNOST~ I have the belief that indeed humans on Mars migrated to earth because they had destroyed their atmosphere, or perhaps somehow killed off the phytoplankton in their oceans. That would destroy an atmosphere.
Earth wasn't stabalized enough for humanity at that time and they had a lot of problems when they arrived, like Atlantis eventually being destroyed by some natural disaster. There have been advanced societies tha tlived on Earth long before our recorded history.
Hard to believe that some humans are still debating about which side of global warming caution to err on. Considering how human life on Earth may hang in the balance, and considering that we'll never know for sure until it's too late, what is there to fundamentally debate?
The Mars Rovers photos show a now-dead parched planet that probably once had an atmosphere that enveloped oceans and possibly sponsored surface life.
If humanity manages to survive, it wouldn't be too terribly surprising if future human Rovers discovered that ancient Martians had had their equivalent of Mammon Republicans and lackey scientists; idiots who ruined that planet because their greed-blinded Mars policies weren't stopped in time.
Yet here on Earth, despite all the solid, alarming evidence, we have supposedly sane people still saying "...human precautions taken about global warming are economically unjustifiable, folks, because we just don't have the absolute data."
Of course, if we prove in this regard to be a dumb as any possible Martians might have been, on their planet aeons ago, at least we humans won't be around to be embarrassed by the damning likeness.
PUCK TWAIN: If you're really interested, I wrote a book on the subject: Neptune and The Closing Phase of the Piscean Age. It's available at: www.Iuniverse.com and sometimes I've seen it on Amazon.com (It was written for professional astrologers, but a lay person of intelligence could grasp much of its content. I gave a copy to a woman who befriended me early in my career, a ph.D psychiatrist who was head of the department of health in Puerto Rico and she said it was right on. That NOD felt exceptionally validating!)
It would be terriffic ~SilkWilly~ Many have suggested it.
The Arctic methane is locked in hydrates and in the oceans it's termed clathrates and they are different, or so I've read. The gas is identical of course.
These are great thredz. I would love to see an section on common dreams devoted to discussion exclusively on these ecological issues. There's so much talent and knowledge here, my head almost explodes!
SikWilly
~BARLEY HUMAN'S~ post on May 11, 1:32pm is about how many take the seriousness of the issue. Most appropriate.___Funny too.
~ZEOTROPHE~ the methane gas "hydrates" in the Arctic tundra and pera-frost is not confined in the same manner as the methane "clathrates" in the ocean's seabeds which are confimed by BOTH cold water and water pressure. ___ Check it out.
Methane is found currently in fairly large submarine deposits termed "methane hydrates" or "methane clathrates." Such gas hydrates are described in a NASA article as molecules of gas locked in a "cage" of water molecules, with the mass forming in conditions of low temperature and high pressure. Deposits have been found in significant concentration in benthic sea bed sediment layers (at depths below about a thousand feet.) In some places, such as concentrations off the West coast of Canada, the masses are great enough to encourage speculation that frozen methane for fuel could be a profitable target for mining operations. (It's also found in permafrost layers, so it doesn't seem to depend on its stability entirely from deep sea pressures.)
The idea that exploding oceanic methane hydrate has caused massive global catastrophe was the subject of a recent study jointly conducted by staff from Oregon State University, Scripps Institute (UCND) University of Victoria and UofColorado. Their study "...largely ruling out major bursts of methane from seafloor deposits during a period of global warming..." pretty well discounts that sort of scenario.
There has been responsible conjecture (i.e., by trained scientists) that occasional sub-sea disturbances have released large enough quantities of the ice and gas to endanger surface shipping.
The idea is that as the methane rises falling pressure lets the gas bubble out of solution. Approaching the surface, the Methane creates a froth of bubbles, and if the mass of bubbles is large enough it substantially reduces the density of the seawater. If a large enough mass of bubbles happens to come up around a vessel, could swallow it entire. That is, the mixture of methane bubbles and seawater are so much lighter than the hull of any ship that the weight of the ship would be too much for the amount of froth it displaces. Its bouyancy effectively is negated, and it drops outta sight. I believe there were experiments conducted with scale models of oil tankers, in which bubbles were released below them, and the ship models just disappeared.
You've heard of "rogue waves."
Now there are "Rogue Bubble Baths."
KEM PATRICK
gordon clark is more than fine...........he's up there with cindy sheehan
as for the cockroaches............they'll survive along with the ants.
Sioux Rose: what about this Piscean thing? Didn't that start 8-8-88? As a quintessential Pisces I can't what for the age to move on...thanks for the oil-Mutable Water link-is there a more mutable liquid than oil? What does this say about the Fixed Air age on deck? Is that related to the Mayan calendar, where I hear we're moving into an age of "ethics"?
Did anyone out there know you can create a bio-bubble with Steiner/Schauberger/Reich techniques
that obviates the fear of methane release; well at least for you and the other bubbles like Gates is building? Of course you gotta be harmonizing like Sioux Rose or your ass gets fried by that kind of technology, and unfortunately most people seeking that knowledge are out to one up their neighbor, thus because of that intention are not allowed access to the delicacies of certain receptions needed for implementation.
So, yeah to me it becomes a matter of culturing the organic character structure capable of "leadership", filling out the potentiality of the human template. Of course there are many methods available, but who has the courage to look into the Eye of Sauron in order to turn the key? We only need like 5,000 per continent, of course I heard there were 6 total for the world back in the '90's.
And, yes, there's always hope for a nick in time, thus mutating humanity to a functional insanity.
I mean I still have hope for impeachment hearings, so if there's hope for that...well get back to imagining!
Peace.
Gordon Clark is a fine man COCO. Thanks for posting that link.
Hi ~ELMSTERIO~ indeed Earth could have an atmosphere of mostly methane someday. We or our children won't be here to see it. The ones trapped in the space station might if they have a good supply of food and water.
It almost happened here once before, read the scientist Michael J. Benton's book,___ "When Life Nearly Died". ___ Almost, and we're helping to see it happen again. Nothing was left alive on Earth but some bacteria and deep sea creatures, worms and roaches. Next time even those may be eradicated.
STOP BICKERING AND DO SOMETHING
check out this website:
www.clarkforcongress.net
this man is actually trying to help.................
Kem Patrick wrote: There are (400 gigatons) of methane gas locked up in that perma-frost and it has been safely locked up there for the past five million years.
Methane is the dominant gas in the atmospheres of many of our neighboring planets. Perhaps, after all this gas bubbles out of the permafrost, Earth too will become a methane dominant planet.... Then, warming will be the least of our problems.
Of course we are using the land improperly, growing crops where others would be far better for everyone. The finest cotton in the world is grown in water short Arizona along with highwater use pecan forests.
We literally wiped out the Bison almost "obliterated" them and brought in cattle and sheep. Bison were not easy to brand and herd and they screwed up train schedules. Besides their wonderful fur made wonderful robes to hang on the backs of the front seat's straps of our early automobiles. Lousy car heaters early on.
Yeah, we have hundreds of problems. Which ones are the most pressing and should be placed at the top of the priority list? Maybe we should talk about drug use by our movie and rock stars, or Michael Jackson's depleted nose, or Evil Kenivel becomeng a Christian so his books will sell and forget about what this article is all about.
Yeah, let's discuss the price of condoms and why they are now so damned expensive and that may create another baby boom. What color condom does your gal prefer and does she like them ribbed or smooth? Methane gas? ___ What's that? We all pass gas, shit. Who cares?
undobush wrote: It's a story set in the context of a teacher discussing with his class all of the evidence that the Bush administration is as corrupt as it is incompetent
Blimey, if this is a movie, it will run a hundred times longer than any Eisenstein movie and those kids will be in school for the next 100 years!
". If your old enough to remember, in the 1960's, a number of climatologists predicted an ice age was upon us. Remember?"
I am old enough to remember the '60s & I recall being fascinated by the thing called the slide rule carried by high school & college students. By the time i reached high school, however, it was obsolete.
Environmentalists are not "linear" thinkers who fail to recognize the interaction of organismss, and to complain that referring to "systems" represents "llinear" thinking ignores that organisms ARE systematic & depend on a balance between these interrelated systems functioning. The problem of global warming issuing in global poisoning is a consequence of humanity's global footprint outstripping that of all other species, and the difficulty with which our brains cope with threat & promise -- we respond best to personalized threats & promises. We find it difficut to believe that we are causing catastrophe because we believe that we are nice, harmless people who could not possibly be destroying an entire planet. "I'm not evil, so my normal activities can't have an evil result" is the way every person thinks; and to confront that & change the way of thinking & then change the behavior on a wide scale is a much slower process than creating crises ever is.
The saying that the generals are always fighting the last war is more widely applicable to the human race -- by the time we learn our lesson, we have created, inadvertently, a new disaster.
I thought you'd like to check out the political allegory of mine that I just found a literary agent for. It's a story set in the context of a teacher discussing with his class all of the evidence that the Bush administration is as corrupt as it is incompetent....and how to rectify the Constitutional crisis we face. It's couched in a discussion about the urgent need to stop abusing Mother Nature. I wrote in 3 dozen celebrities to play the students, so it's very funny despite how infuriating it is. You can read it at www.stoplittering.com/theswitch.htm and, yes, StopLittering.com is my site.
When you finish reading it I'll be happy to send you my larger manuscript Reality Check, which contains the guidelines to The Initiative Movement.
Here's just one more, on the economics of this issue. Changed my life and will give you an amazing understanding of the economic policies and ideologies that cause this situation, as well as give some solutions and counter logic that makes a lot of sense. It's by ecological economist Herman Daly, "Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development".
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Growth-Economics-Sustainable-Development/dp/0807047090
I highly recommend this book, "A Short History of Progress" by Ronald Wright. One of the best written and insightful books on this subject that you can get. Like Diamonds "Collapse" but shorter and more poetic.
http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/dp/0786715472
Sorry, I write in a flow and don't pay as much attention as I should to paragraph and sentence structure. I'll keep an eye on it.
Humans are herbivores. It requires 1/50th the amount of land to produce a healthy diet for a practicing human herbivore compared to what is required for the average Western meatarian diet.
So what are some of the factors involved in the overtilling and deforestation of the earth:
(excerpt below from http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/carboncycle/supply/sequestration.html)
No-till or Low-till agriculture
Agriculture emits CO2 when farmers till their fields and expose organic matter in the soil to the air. The soil organic matter, mainly carbon, then decomposes and is converted into atmospheric CO2. Reducing or eliminating tillage can prevent soil organic matter loss and hence decrease agricultural emissions. Agricultural soils could be turned into a short-term sink for carbon dioxide under no-till methods. The IPCC believes that cropland sequestration could total 40-80Gt C in the next 50 to 100 years.
Soil Conservation Practices
Practices designed to reduce soil erosion from agricultural lands can contribute to efforts to increase soil carbon, and hence to sequester atmospheric carbon. Some such practices include planting cover crops to eliminate vare fallow periods, planting hedges or grass strips as wind breaks, reducing week control in areas of high erosion, terracing , and planting perpendicular to the slope of the field and /or the prevailing wind direction (Hedger et al. 1997).
Cropland Retirement
Numerous studies have detailed the vast amounts of carbon lost when forests and grasslands are converted to agricultural land. Retiring land from crop production and reestablishing perennial vegetation can go a long way to recover this lost carbon and produce a temporary (years to decades) sink for CO2. This retirement can take several forms: abandonment of farms; allowing nature to take its course; deliberate efforts to reestablish forests or grassland through active land management; or temporary set-asides.
________
THE ONLY hope for a lasting bio-sphere is to respect the place it has assigned for you within it.
Humans are herbivores.
The importance of this understanding, and how soon everyone can realize it continues to define how much life is possible, for whom and for how long.
Excellent points ~GRANT~.
I will offer a suggestion. If you would break up your paragraps into smaller ones, your posts will be much easier to read. Thank you for your comments.
Widhalm19, let's get basic then, shall we? The Earth has a finite amount of resources, yet our population and consumption continue to grow. Our economic system is designed to continuously expand, principally the monetary system and financial markets, which expands continuously the ability of people to purchase natural resources, exacerbating the problem. Even global warming "deniers" like Lomborg (even he admits that the increased CO2 emissions are a problem and are caused by human activity) says that the trees in the Amazon will "only" be gone by the end of the century. In sum, there is a huge contradiction and one that the longer we wait the harder and more costly the transition will be. According to recent estimates, ALL the fish in the ocean (which again evolved over BILLIONS of years) will be gone by the mid to later part of the century. Not severely depleted, GONE! When should we, according to you, wait until? You talk about the vagueness of scientific inquiry then, when faced with something as daunting as this, make a vague comment about not being too reactionary or concerned. As the Amazon's trees get cut down and the fish consumed to extinction, when should the radicals in the environmental movement (the only ones willing to let the logic of the situation determine their policies instead of their immovable economic philosophy only allowing inferior and non-problem solving programs to be implemented) be given the time of day?
Your global cooling comment and reference to the previous poster is typical of propagandists like yourself. If you did research on what you're talking about you might notice that the wording of the scientists was very cautionary at the time and the predictions of coming ice ages were hundreds and thousands of years in the future. They also, like with CO2, focused on the emissions of industry and industrial society, which logically will always be a problem and an environmental killer. Newspapers ran with the stories but used alarmist language that was largely missing in the actual scientific journals. It's a nice propaganda opportunity though, isn't it?
The basic point, which is not open to argument logically, is that the economic system is a subsystem of the ecosystem and is getting far too big in regards to the larger system, with far too much information missing in the economic system to take into account the actual costs that are being created by industrial society. What is increasingly in our control is not in control of the billions of years long decentralized planetary ecosystem. If we genetically modify crops we take over nature. If we use more and more land for our own use, less is open to other species to live and to evolve as they have previously, there is then also all the less room to grow and few resources available per capita and aggregately. Variety, which is how life has survived many of the previous extinctions, is declining as more and more of nature is taken over by us and put under the foot of commercial demand. The Earth has evolved where no species dominated like we have. Previous species might have been the dominant life form but they lived and died as other species if they didn't hunt and gather correctly. None of them tried to or could control, and in the process destroy, nature like we have and none of them had to deal with the problem of not being able expand and consume more resources on a world wide scale like we are dealing with now. The main issue, which modern economics ignores, is the relationship of our economic system and the environment. Ecological costs are missing in prices, are missing in national indices, are missing when analyzing the expansion of purchasing power and are missing in regards development and class relations (with the rich, and the rich countries, consuming far more than the poorer countries and individuals, who procreate much faster). THAT is the issue and the reason why the global warming "deniers" are so well funded and have a largely "free market" ideological bent. They have their fixed in stone ideas and they'll be damned if something as small as ruining the only habitable planet that we know at this time in the universe is going to stop them.
"People who blog comment here like that and fail to address the issues, annoy me to no end. We're not discussing Obama and Hillary here, or veggies versus cannibals, we're attempting to discuss a very, very serious issue."
'veggies versus cannibals' is THE most defining ecological issue on this planet. That you don't know that yet is tragic… for many.
Hillary vs. Obama is likewise bound up with this for they are nothing but actors on a set... built with deception and founded upon gargantuan fallacies.
As you look around the world; at the forests that are gone, the man-made deserts, the dying oceans, polluted riverbeds, the billions of creatures living in forced captivity and the resource wastes and pollutions that support these activities, you must note that these are ALL due to human organized social activity... but NOT activities that in any way improved the quality of life for humans.
Those who believe that the quality of life has been improved by the slash and burn programs and forced inequities of imperial rule are still fully ensconced in a closed loop pattern for achieving maximal ignorance.
If you want to avoid future tragedy, the best approach is; stop enabling today's tragedies upon which future ones are being built... giving energy to the processes that enable its prediction.
Learn to respect your own ecological nature. Teach others to do likewise. http://allinharmony.org.
The best outcome possible at this late stage can then be accomplished for if we do not soon embrace our own nature, nature itself will not have any ability to embrace us. Time is NOT on anyone's side! Today is already too late for most, tomorrow will be impossible for us too.
~WIDHALM 19~ You say, "Whoa hold on, take a deep breath and calm yourself."
What make you think that anyone here requires calming down? We're discussing a very serious problem and themethane gas issue in a reasonable manner and offering ideas that may help to prevent the end of all life on our planet. So what's the "WHOA" all about? Oh, I know, you wanted to write something that was meaningless and display your ignorant intellect on the subject; was that it?
Do you disagree by some strange chance, that the Arctic methane "burps" are not a distinct possibility and perhaps so within our lifetimes? ___BTW, do you have any childrn or grand-children? Pehaps they would like to offer an opinion on the issue?
What is YOUR opinion on the statements of the author of the artilce I posted Widhalm 19? Do you believe he is wrong? How about the Russian scientists who observed methane gas spewing out into the atmosphere from several lakes in the Arctic last month? You think they are wrong, or need calming down? What's the-19 stand for? ___ Please, don't tell us that's your IQ. __ It couldn't be.
People who blog comment here like that and fail to address the issues, annoy me to no end. We're not discussing Obama and Hillary here, or veggies versus cannibals, we're attempting to discuss a very, very serious issue. So what's your opinion on the methane gas issue?
Widhalm:
You are right! The comlexitities of these weather models does make them subject to inaccuracies. However, so far these inaccuracies have done nothing but bolster the theory that the earth is warming dangerously fast. We are finding that our computer models are off as much as 50-100 years! Case in point:
On Dec. 12, 2006 BBC World News reported climate models suggested an ice-free summer Arctic somewhere around 2060 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6171053.stm)
Then on Oct.1, 2007 NASA scientists, after observed melting, predicted loss of summer Arctic ice closer to 2012!
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070927090341.htm)
So much for accurate climate models!
Sik
Widhalm19 wrote: If your old enough to remember, in the 1960's, a number of climatologists predicted an ice age was upon us. Remember?
You gave a great treatise on the scientific method. Thanks.
The scientific community's warnings in the 60s and 70s was a prescient look into the future. The relatively inadequate data and modeling software led 1960s researchers to conclusions that are counter to day's theories. Their theories may have been different, but they were responding to exactly what we are seeing today. Unfortunately, deniers see this as a flaw in the scientific method, whereby I see that researchers were observing the warning signs that were visible 40 years ago, it was just too premature to advocate predictions based on such early data and understanding of the complex processes.
40 years later, we have more and better data, better understanding of the processes, but it may still be too early to conclusively hang a hat on an outcome.
Commondreamers,
Whoa! Hold on there just a minute. While I admire your passions, take a deep breath and calm yourself.
Science, done properly, does NOT set out to prove hypotheses, theories or laws. The scientific method is utilized to disprove variables until whatever remains is considered the best set of verifiable facts (based on repeated experimentation). Interestingly, the scientific method was a process constructed by the Empiricists to refute claims accepted as "truths" by the Rationalists. Science, at it's best, is the art and practice of skepticism not zealous belief; which is what distinguishes science from religion.
At any rate, science does NOT seek absolutes. Science seeks theories - which must be falsifiable - to explain observed phenomena. Yes! a theory can be confirmed but NOT proven.
Science is a wonderful tool but it's not without problems and conundrums. For instance, the scientific method uses deduction to pare hypotheses down to a cluster verifiable facts. At that point, scientists employ induction to construct theories based on those facts. As you can imagine, if only one fact changes (usually due to an emergent property or characteristic) - the theory must change, too. Philosophically, this is called the "problem of induction".
Another constraint of scientific reasoning is it's atomistic, time-laden, linear cause / effect approach to reasoning. Science uses the machine analogy. That is where terms like "systems", "networks", "mechanisms" and the "balance-of-nature" originate. There is no balance in nature only change.
The universe is not really like a machine. The constantly changing, nature, of nature, is more like an organism (of which humans are simply members) than a computer. Holistic or dynamic considerations - meaning, understanding through ever changing relationships - are a better way of grasping the complexity of this planet and our place atop it.
On to global warming! Generally, with several cooling episodes, the Earth has been getting warmer for the past 14,000 years. And, the verifiable evidence is compelling that Earth has warmed about 1 degree Celsius during the past 100 years or so. Have humans contributed to the recent temperature increase by way of the "greenhouse effect"? Probably, yes.
But, friends, the Earth's climate is a highly chaotic "system" notoriously difficult to understand and predict. In fact, the world's climate is one the most complex entities known. If your old enough to remember, in the 1960's, a number of climatologists predicted an ice age was upon us. Remember?
The Earth's climate is rife with emergent properties. For example, a warming Earth would likely encourage increased evaporation, and thus, more cloud-cover and precipitation. Greater precipitation in the far northern and southern latitudes might well cause glaciers to accumulate more snow-pack, not less.
One contributor tried to raise the complexity of climate predictions, but was shouted down for being a "denier" ... a disbeliever.
Hmm ...
That's how religion operates, friends, not thoughtful inquiry.
Do we all have problems, some more serious than others? Financial problems, legal problems, trouble with family members, need a new roof, the well is going dry, your boss hates you and so does your mother-in-law. Perhaps a mate is having an affair, school taxes are doubling this year and your pet cat has an infected tit and the vet wants $120 to remove it and she has seven more tits.
How about serious national problems? The coming election and you may think that all three viable candidates are liars and have sold their souls to the devil or the Neo-cons, or maybe one hasn't you hope, so who to vote for and Nader can't possiblly win.
Global warming and climate change, rivers and lakes drying up, food shortages, and the high cost of food and fuel. Illegl aliens, the war in Iraq and a possible attack on Iran, The housing slump and a possible depression. The whales and polar bears are in touble and rising sea levels. Our president is crazy and may inact presidential directive 51 and become our king.
There are many serious national and world problems and no argument from me about them. We have to reduce populations, repair a faulty economic system, etc, etc, eyc. ___HOWEVER,___ what MOST serious problem do we have, that could soon end with the death of everyone ___ EVERYONE ___ ALL of humanity and all other life on the planet and even the planet itself? ___ Right!___ It's the Arctic methane gas problem. Let's attack that problem FIRST and then work on the other very serious problems. We must set priorities or run around like bleeting sheep. ___ We aren't sheep.
I'm surprised to see Bill McKibben advocating hybrids. Maybe he meant hybrid busses.
Now make it four useless commets adding in ~PRESENCE~ last mumblings. Good grief, what is wrong with some of you; are you on drugs?
Read the link I offered, then try to intelligently think about it and argue it if you disagree. Maybe you're smarter or more qualified than the author.
You don't have to go back up and look for it, I'll post it again. It takes about three minutes to read and understand, unless you have a reading disability along with your other obvious mental problems.
http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html
"POOR KEM" you say ~HUCK~. Why write that?
What I have posted here is that we have a MOST serious problem of the Arctic's methane gas burbling out and destroying ALL life on Earth. Read the link I have offered and explain why it's not accurate or truthful.
I am repeating what noted and highly qualified, highly regarded scientists have warned us of and they have spent their entire adult lives studying the Earth and the enviroment. And for me to have the audacity to repeat their words and offer some ideas to help, you term me ___ "POOR KEM".
What is wrong with you? It is precicely your's and the prior two dimwits to your post who also posted useless comments that help to aggrivate the situation. Totally ignorant Comments such as you three tend to promote the same type of harmful mind set with our elected and the world leaders and prevent them from doing anything productive.
What exactly have you three written here of any use or prodctivity to help with our very most serious issue? __ Answer:___ Absolutely nothing.
iammyself, you're talking about a small community, made up of people who are choosing to be there and have the needed consciousness to make it happen. You'll notice that the community happens to be in a country that has one of the worse deforestation rates in Latin America and is destroying a beautiful and diverse environment. The community is definitely an inspiration, but you have to realize that that community needs a mindset to function and flourish, that the people are there because they want to be and already have that mindset and that it is much harder to get the whole of human civilization to function like that when the only thing we've known as a species for thousands of years is expansion and every increasing consumption. There's a difference between realizing how daunting the task is and being illogically pessimistic.
This is right to the point. One commentator noted something about "giving up."
Anyone voting for a Dem or a Repud - I beg to point out - has thrown in the towel. They are all handpicked by corporate entities.
Sheep will always be sheep, and dream world scenarios prevail. My advice is to prepare. A lesson I learned while living on the Rez. Our Hopi Elders believe the human race has fallen over the edge and given the denial by status quo voters like poor Kem, the world as we know it will never be the same again.
I'm pretty pessimistic. Economics is a large part of the problem, it ignores the costs of industrial activity to the environment and would have to radically change to make these types of reforms possible. Try talking to someone who believes in the orthodox economics they teach in classrooms, and whose spokesmen are always on TV. You'll see how hopeless the reform it and how ridiculous their reasons are for fighting that reform. People should realize that economics HAS to change if this is a reality and that means radically, fundamentally changing the monetary system and the way that financial markets work, since they always expand purchasing power to consume natural resources and we need the opposite to happen. Have any idea how hard this will be, what it entails and who it will negatively effect?
Most people I know, while they might not be totally up on the issue, realize that the environment is under stress and they aren't doing, or aren't willing to do, much of anything to really change that. They'll pay lip service to certain ideals, maybe use a canvas bag when buying groceries or something, but are they willing to really reduce their consumption and fundamentally change their life? On the whole I see no personal evidence to believe they are. Most everyone I know has all these gadgets (and always has to be first in line to get the newest, shiniest one), huge TV's, flashy cars and goods that travel thousands of miles to arrive in their possession. How also are we going to tackle things like CO2 emissions when we need the developing countries to come aboard and we, at least to this point, aren't willing to reduce our consumption? Who in the developing world is going to listen to US when we consume five to six times more resources on average than them? Look at how long it takes in this outdated democracy to get things that we DO almost entirely agree on, like healthcare reform, and then tell me how realistically something this radical has a chance of happening? It should, but I don't think people have the understanding of the issue or the willingness to sacrifice enough to make it a reality. I desperately hope I'm wrong and will continue to do what I can to work on the issues, but based on what I see I'm very pessimistic and this economic system and the mentality it creates is the largest reason.
Honestly, if you want to save the planet you'll probably have no choice but to attack those doing the most damage to the environment, and who have an economic incentive to not change. The government and media here is controlled by these interests, so it's really going to up to the people and, like I said, I'm not sure that will happen. Not only do they have to change, they have to force the change and have to have the radical understanding to see it through. Activists have their work cut out for them.
Hello everybody!
Great discussion. The majority of "fixes" suggested in this tread, I believe, are extremely flawed and short-sited (no insult intended! sorry!). The fact is this crisis reaches FAR beyond "fixing the energy problem". If we somehow breached the national security, top secret, for MJ-12 eyes only, super-secret squirrel-coded patent offices and make our way to the tesla-influenced quantum-phased super genius engineer who happens to have connections with -and here's the even more unrealistic scenerio- a morally bound, ethically motivated corporation who can pull of production and distribution of this free energy machine, the only thing that will happen is INCREASED EXTRACTION AND PRODUCTION OF RAW MATERIALS THAT FEED OUR ALL-CONSUMING CULTURE that the rest of the 6 billion people on this overloaded planet wish to emulate. So, CO2 problem solved, the collapse of the entire global biosphere kicked up a notch x's thousandfold!
We need to completely change the way we see and interact with LIFE. I saw this mentioned a couple times, and the author's of these posts are seeing the light. Do I believe our global culture can see life as Earth's most precious creation before it is too late? Hell no. But for those who are left, maybe this cataclysm will remind them so.
Will
www.oneplanetonelife.com
So you want to give up huh?
Mars is still a planet also, you ever take a good look at it? Mars could easily be Earth's twin if we don't have a serious attempt to stop the Methange gas problem.
"Mother Nature will survive. The planet will survive. The American Empire will not. Millions of people will not. And there is nothing to be done about it because people will not change."
There it is, in the famous nutshell. That's exactly how it will play out. Except it will be billions who will eventually perish, not merely millions. Millions upon millions of years will pass and perhaps something better, wiser and infinitely more humble than human beings will appear on Planet Earth. But this failed experiment called the human being, this strutting, superstitious, puffed up little know-it-all who has barely ever known anything and is perfectly exemplified in our time by George Wanker Bush will be reduced to numbers so small they will eventually disappear altogether. We have finally arrived at the horizon.
Excellent points ~Youareyourself~.
For starters as ~Siouxrose~ asked, are our elected even aware of this??? __ Maybe, maybe not. We don't know what they are aware of.
Let's all actually write to our elected congress persons and very briefly and politely tell them about it and offer them them a link to confirm your opinions. I personally would not use the words "global warming" or climate change", they have all heard those two words often enough. "METHANE GAS" is the critical issue. Then write a letter to your local newpaper editor and do the same. ___ Brief and to the point.
Personally I like the link I use to frighten people but there are many other brief links on the subject. The word "fear" is often used here improperly BTW. There is nothing wrong with scaring people into action when nothing else has worked.
For example: If you ever wished to rob a bank, you'd likely get more money if you waved a 12 gage around and told them to fill your duffle bag with cash, or you were gonna shoot everyone in the buildling. That is just one little example, there are others one could think of I'm sure.
Motivation by fear most certainly is not the best way to motivate people, but it's effective for the short term and we need to advise our elected on the short term so they can see there is a problem and allow them to quickly work out a plan for the long term.
Asking them to read a book on the subject is probably not the best alternative, because most likely our congress people won't take the time to do that, their being so busy raising cash donations for their next campaign. I'm not being facecious there, that's actually what they do with most of their time.
Now it only takes a few congress people to get a ball rolling and sometimes the ball rolls the right direction, so how about giving it a try. After all, we all sit and spend time writing blogs here, so let's try writing a letter to our congress and letters to the editor. ___ It's a start.
Finally, ~Namaste~ or ~Presence~ as you have now named yourself, I do love your decency and goodness buddy, But if you should write a letter to an editor or your congress person, please don't sound like a nut-case. You know how to write like an intelligent and well educated engineer, even if you aren't. A little bullshit often works with politicians, just don't overdo it. ___ Just a thought.
coco,
The reason I mentioned Weisman's other book, Gaviotas, is because it is the opposite of the one you mentioned. True, Weisman sees the scope of the environmental problem, and it is daunting. However, he's also seen what is possible. Gaviotas is a real place with real people who have managed to build a sustainable life in a harsh climate (both physically and politically).
Had the founders of Gaviotas listened to all the doomsday predictions that abound, I doubt whether Gaviotas would have existed. This is what is happening now. People see and hear all the terrible predictions and become paralyzed with fear. Or, they succumb to ennui and have no will do do anything.
Others here have written about the lack of political will, or the lack of wisdom. It's true. So? It takes a certain mindset to want to live and work in a place like Washington, D.C. amongst all the power-brokers. It takes a certain ruthlessness and egocentrism to be able to deal with all the games and backstabbing. So? That's the way it is. So, what are we going to do about it? We can be surrender-monkeys or we can be citizens. Either way, we will reap what we sow.
Friends, there are good things that are happening. The struggle is endless, but it is a good fight - and it is worth fighting, even if we lose (and I'm not convinced we will).
So...what's it going to be?
MiMiCcS, wrote: The warming thats happening is due to the Sun is hotter, even Mars is seeing it's polar ice caps shrinking.
This is a main argument of the denialists, and has been thoroughly debunked. The data indicating that the sun is "warming" was not calibrated and did not take into account the 11-year sun-spot cycle. The use of this data caused other researches to erroneously claim that Neptune is warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
rtdrury asked: what's the material you used in your cistern?
I used environmentally unfriendly concrete, topped with wooden joists and a galvanized steel roof. The concrete had to be hauled up 3,000' from town, so yes, mea kulpa, even this "pro-active" exercise had a considerable environmental impact.
I'm not sure whose post mentioned what our leaders need to do right away for us to have a chance to beat this thing. The problem with this idea is something I currently see as being at the root of all our human problems--a dynamic which sees to it that power and wisdom repel each other. That is, the wisest among us are least likely to be in positions of power; the people we name as our official leaders are usually the least wise among us. Wisdom is essentially a matter of seeing far, both geographically and temporally, and thus overcoming the illusion that "me and my little club over here" are more important, more alive, than other people over there, or other species, or people who will be born 187 years from now. The least wise are the most short-sighted--those who believe that making the most money and obtainbing the most privileges for me and my family, right now, are the bottom line, the thing that matters. Suchg people are motivated to fight for wealth and power, which in our society are nearly interchangable--if you have wealth you can easily get power and if you have power it's easy to direct wealth your way. "Climbing the ladder" is an apt metaphor for this world-view, and the closer you get to the top the more violent the competition. Scruples are a big handicap. So the very top levels are populated only by sociopaths, those who have no conscience at all. Most of the US Congress is composed of such people, and this is true of most of the rest of the world as well. Jimmy Carter shows signs of having a conscience, and I have wondered at times if his election was a "mistake" from the point of view of the ruling class--but when he was President, the revolutions in Central America were ruthlessly crushed. Obama is interesting because he suggests at times he may not be a sociopath but it's hard to tell. No mystery about the Clintons or McCain. Anyway, my point here is that we have a SYSTEM that guarantees that we CAN'T get the kind of leadership that can save us, not through the official channels anyway.
Webwalker says we therefore need to focus on individual action and wants pledges. Some criticized him/her for building a concrete (presumably) cistern, asking how that would help global warming. Yes, concrete has high embodied energy, but one who endeavors to achieve personal and communal independence (not only to reduce participation in generating greenhouse gases, presumably, but also to be prepared to transition to the post-petroleum world we are about to find ourselves in) must find ways to solve problems without a continuing need for fossil fuel imports. For example, setting up a rainwater collection system instead of relying on a pump, especially in a dry place like NM, makes great sense. In the long run, the use of concrete for a cistern may well be a good choice.
I have increased my GHG in one particular, by buying a six-cylinder truck that gets 12 to 19 MPG--for years I've used a Ford Aspire that gets 43 MPG. But this was a necessity for building a house--one which we are designing to use no more than a cord of firewood to heat, no air conditioning, and we will power it with solar panels (my man thinks we may be able to use wind too but I'm not so sure--WV is not that windy except along the high mountains on the VA border). I am researching green manure crops so I can start next year to do major gardening--I'll also have to build a coop for chickens and ducks and goats are a possibility. Some of these projects involve a temporary increase in GHG emissions, in order to establish us in a situation in which we can be nearly entirely free of GHG use (and maybe then we'll sell the truck).
But I also feel I must keep working for political change, however thin the hope. Here, that means working actively to choke the life out of attempts to build coal-to-liquids plants. Stopping mountaintop-removal mining is nearly impossible, it's so entrenched--stopping plants which are only projected is a real possibility. It isn't easy to find time for this, though, while building a house (doing all the work ourselves).
Incidentally, someone else mentioned the virtues of city life and how much less fossil fuel s/he uses now, relying on public transportation. True--but don't forget, food and other necessities are being trucked to you from the country. Smaller towns are probably more viable post-petroleum than huge cities.
CIVIL BEHAVIOUR, IAMMYSELF, KEM, LIPO, ET AL
thank you for all the book references. i haven't read it yet, but another one is 'global warning - the last chance for change' by paul brown. it's a big book with lots of pictures and interesting facts. and as good as these books are, reading about our problems only saddens me more. because as LIPO says, people will not change. (well, the posters here excepted)
i admire all the efforts we are making to bring about awareness and change, but whenever i mention our challenges to others, i'm usually met with ridicule and distain.
the chapter in 'a world without us' regarding the disappearance of the mayan civilisation smacks heavily of what is going on world-wide in present times. at least then, they didn't have nuclear power or weapons, that in my opinion are the two most dastardley inventions. and the worst legacy we leave to any future life after we have 'obliterated' ourselves.........since 1950 no less than 2050 nuclear weapons tests have been performed on earth. and guess who topped the list with just under half that figure..............
ALEX LAWYER: In other words brought us PREMEDITATED MURDER on a grand and grotesque scale. Ironic isn't it, that these types claim the religious high ground when theirs is an allegiance to the god of death, destruction and depravity (known to the ancients as Mars, who laid claim to the first born sons).
"NO ~YOUAREYOURSLF~. ~MiMiCcS~ is NOT correct that the global warmng is not man made and that is a myth. It definently is man made. And you are correct that the "Greenhouse effect" is the problem."
I'm just recognizing the fact that there may be other variables, Kem. I'm in no way denying the human cause.
I realize that many people refuse to see the cause and effect relationship. Such people do nothing to advance solutions. They also consistently destroy their credibility.
The plea is authentic. The context right on! THe problem is that the American people lack little resolve to take on the pain required to impact the problem. When the two major political candidates in the Dem Party are advocating for Bio Fuels, Nuclear, and driving gass guzzlers, a demonstration that they JUST DON'T GET IT! Like most of the people on CD, present author excluded. He does get it.
coco,
Also by Alan Weisman: Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaviotas
http://www.amazon.com/Gaviotas-Village-Reinvent-Alan-Weisman/dp/1890132284
Mother Nature will survive. The planet will survive. The American Empire will not. Millions of people will not. And there is nothing to be done about it because people will not change.