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Planet Heading Toward Climate 'Tipping Point'
WASHINGTON - Little time remains for brokering a global deal on climate change, and a successful outcome depends on involvement and commitment by both developed and developing countries.
This message was driven home yesterday by renowned economist Sir Nicholas Stern, speaking at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.
Stern stressed that by 2050 -- the year often used as a target for reducing global emissions -- 8 billion of the global population of 9 billion will be living in developing countries. But at least 70 percent of the greenhouse gases polluting the skies today are attributable to developed countries.
If the two sides cannot overcome current disagreements and work together to stop deforestation, develop new technologies for capturing carbon in the air, and set firm targets for reducing pollution, Stern warned, the "cost of inaction will be huge and entail major risks."
Two years ago Stern produced a controversial report on the economics of climate change, commissioned by the British government, arguing that if governments failed to invest at least 1 percent of their GDP in mitigating global warming, the end result could be a global decline in GDP of as much as 20 percent.
Yesterday, Stern acknowledged that his earlier report probably underestimated the risks and the rapidity with which global warming is taking place, meaning that governments may need to commit 2 percent of GDP to mitigating climate change.
Stern's warnings came just a day after two other blunt warnings on the impact of climate change.
On Wednesday, 16 national intelligence agencies acknowledged in a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that global climate change presents a threat to U.S. national security -- perhaps the most candid assessment to surface publicly in Washington during the Bush era.
In the short term the effect in the United States will be indirect, resulting from the impact of climate change in other countries, Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis testified before a joint hearing of the energy and intelligence subcommittees of the House of Representatives.
Fingar stressed the likelihood of increased conflict over water, especially in drought-prone Africa, and the growing potential for famine as crops fail due to flooding and drought, leading to widespread social unrest and increased emigration.
Providing assistance to the large numbers of people affected by humanitarian disasters, he added, will gradually deplete U.S. resources.
Fingar told Congress that: "The United States depends on a smooth-functioning international system ensuring the flow of trade and market access to critical raw materials such as oil and gas, and security for its allies and partners. Climate change and climate change policies could affect all of these."
A similar assessment came from scientist James Hansen, who told a gathering at the National Press Club that the world has reached a "tipping point" and must act swiftly and decisively to avoid disaster.
Hansen was the first U.S. scientist to warn of the dangers of climate change some 20 years ago, and is currently head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
"There are tipping points in the climate system, which we are very close to" Hansen argued, "and if we pass them the dynamics of the system take over and carry you to very large changes which are out of your control."
Hansen advocated for the phase-out of all coal-burning power plants by 2030, except those fitted to capture and bury carbon dioxide, and the imposition of taxes on coal, oil, and gas producers as a means to pressure them to reduce emissions.
Stern, meanwhile, called for a "global deal" to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2050, with at least 80 percent of the reduction coming from the United States and Europe, and urged rapid development and dissemination of technologies that facilitate low-carbon growth in developing countries that rely on fossil fuels.
"It is possible to move to zero-carbon solutions," Stern said, citing shifts that occurred in France, Germany, and Brazil following the oil crisis of the late 1970s.
But, he added, action is required urgently in each and every country. "We need more pressure from below and more leadership" at the top.
Copyright © 2008 OneWorld.net.
94 Comments so far
Show AllHow do we get the 75% of people in this country (US) who make less than $65K a year (fact), the ones who are really hurting from the policies of this plutocratic oiligarchy( no typo) to raise up as one?
What is it going to take?
Their very environment is being decimated by the greed of fossil fuel industry and they simply sit silent.
What do we need to do?
Someone please tell me. Please write me and tell me how we can unite and stop this madness.
CD doesn't allow email addresses written properly so here I am in disguise!! civilsocietyATbellsouth.net
In October 1981 we entered Humanity's Next Cycle. We are now very close to the moment in which what has to be done will be done.
civil behavior
One way would be to tie congressional saleries to some multiple of average income. You might also require that health policies offered to elected officers must also be offered to their constituents at the same cost.
I'm with ricg.
The Earth is going to incinerate and everything on it will be burned up until this planet is like Venus. Then again the US might lose some money. Well, if you are dead money sure as heck does not mean a whole lot.
We have a whole bunch of greedy demons running this country, and the same greedy demons are destroying our planet with their narrow-minded viewpoint.
At some point people will have to say the planet or continue playing the game with the greedy demon. The planet we live on and we need to survive or the greed monsters that run this country. Someone somewhere will decide that the demons need to be destroyed to save the planet even non-violent types. The good of the many outweighs the wants of the few. The few if they are so powerful to block every movement towards cleaning up our planet will be destroyed for the needs of the many.
I've already posted my comments on this "most important" issue on yesterday's article tilted, "No Ice At The North Pole". It's still here, lower left side of the screen.
Some others posted some great links on the subject, very informative and educational.
Interesting that so many of the warnings are couched in economic terms, like Stern's focus on GDP.
Hundreds of millions of people are going to die as a direct result of massive climate change. It's not improbable that most of the human race, and most species, will die, especially given the unwillingness of civilization to face the problem squarely and honestly.
But what we hear about in the media is economics. "Harumph, harumph, a lot of people could lose their jobs if we change the way we act, harumph harumph."
Let's see - end of civilization, end of species, destruction of the biosphere, versus a bunch of autoworkers losing their jobs. I dunno, that's a real tough fucking decision - at least it is for the half-wits running the government and the corporations.
The half-wits running the government and the corporations don't care about auto workers or anybody else losing her job.
What they care about---the only thing they have ever cared about is cheap labor and higher corporate profits.
What is hard to understand is how they think their money will help them when the planet is ten to twenty degrees warmer. There won't even BE a bottom line when it is really time to pay up.
Throw a few days military spending at the problem! Heck, a whole week!
Stiglitz's estimated 3 trillion dollars burned for nothing in Iraq would have provided a hundred million dollars a day every day for eighty-two years! Any dreamers among us wouldn't like to be endowed with $100M to try to make a dent in the problem? What about 29'900 dreamers with $100M?
CANCEL THE OLYMPICS BECAUSE OF THIS GLOBAL EMERGENCY. That'll make the sheep look up.
Begin a 'Manhattan Project-scale push for clean energy sources. Solar, Wind, Geothermal - all have been completely starved for research funding. We have no idea what our energy alternatives might be. We have barely scratched the surface of possibilities and technologies.
A comprehensive plan to counter Global Warming exists. A lot of the heavy lifting has been done already. Please check out:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/index.htm
Personally I would like to switch careers and be a part of the solution. But a month without a paycheque and I'm living in a fridge box. That's the real trap. How do we all act fast enough, make the changes, without the whole web collapsing? We have a social safety net in Canada but it is really more of a social safety hankie and it's easy to miss. But waiting for the marketplace to solve GW is not going to do it. The Decline of Man is being managed by Exxon, Monsanto et al - and it is very profitable and thus cannot be stopped without, you know, chopping off a lot of rich fat heads. I guess what we need is a list of heads. Recent threats to arrest the CEO of Exxon for crimes against humanity are a terrific start.
No wonder the big shots are buying up estates on the Eastern slopes of the Andes down Argentine way...make a bunch of bucks, and then ride out the storm in (what they figure) will be the safest area on the planet.
Those of you who contribute messages here might look after yourselves by hiring on as servants down there.
(And as I type this I look up to see yet another US military plane penciling a contrail high over our northern skies, leaving more deceptively harmless looking silver white lines of waste in the blue...every 40 or so minutes...military sure puts a lot of waste into the environment...what are those planes up to up to?)
civil behavior writes: How do we get the 75% of people in this country (US) who make less than $65K a year (fact), the ones who are really hurting from the policies of this plutocratic oiligarchy( no typo) to raise up as one?What is it going to take? Their very environment is being decimated by the greed of fossil fuel industry and they simply sit silent. What do we need to do? Someone please tell me........
Throw away your meds. People will not rise up because they are sedated with pharmaceutical lobotomies, aka antidepressants, to keep them in conformity with the dictates of the corporate-congress death culture. Overall use of antidepressants continues to grow, with over 200 million prescriptions dispensed in the United States last year, according to IMS Health, the premiere health care information company.
Most of these people have nothing wrong with them at all other than that they just can't cope with their criminally insane Uncle Sam.
A father beat his 2 year old son to death in front of bystanders who did nothing. The tendency is that people in a group expect someone else to act.
Most people just expect the high ups to do something. Whether the high ups expect someone else to do something is the real question. God maybe?
Maybe God expects someone else to do something--which is why the planet is the way it is.
civil behaviour -
I like this thread! For once, people here are actaully condidering the things that need to be done.
As long as the questions are about how we can solve this problem through 'legitimate channels', the problem will just get worse. It's time to get energized. We all share this planet. Truly, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
Riding your bicycle is no longer enough. If someone is pointing a gun at your family, it's not enough to be reasonable and expect things to work out all right. It's time to take action!
I keep seeing these articles about heading toward a tipping point and wondering when it will actually be reached. My own, admittedly unscientific, observations and interpretations of everything I've been able to find on the subject tell me that we may already have crossed the point of no return -- especially when the high level of responsive inertia is considered.
Ever think about why the Bushies seem to be so unconcerned about election results, public confidence, war costs and Global Warming?
They are so totally unconcerned about Us People because they are focused on 'their' own agenda, World Domination, and their Final Solution to Global Warming is to eliminate/kill 5,000,000,000 to 6,000,000,000 Human Beings, dramatically reducing the Worlds Human Population.
If there were ever a time that justifies revolution, it is NOW!
We NOW need more Brave/Honest leaders to step foreward and Lead!
Yes, our beloved planet Mother Earth is dying, and we are crucifying Her. How insensitive of us. But yes, we too are all dying. Just think of it, in fifty to another 90 years everybody reading these words will have long been dead along with our Blessed Mother. Add another 15 billion years and our entire Universe will either have collapsed into a Black Hole leading us all into the dimensionlessness of a Grand Singularity -- http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/13/science/sci-collider13 -- or will have expanded into the Infinitude of cold Outer Space. Such a dreadful fate we humans are subject to. Tax us to Heaven! So the Left.
But we know the Right is right...right? Long before the demise of Heaven and Earth we will all either have been annihilated by the Islamofascists with their incipient nuclear weapons and Black Magic Carpets or we will have been overrun by mad border-protecting Patriots -- lately referred to as White Al Qaeda. Oh my heavens, it's those White Qaeda that scare me the most. Sniffle, sniffle. Throw 'em all in FEMA camps and nuke us to Heaven! So the Right.
Golly gosh who will deliver us from both the Left and the Right? I know. The Post-Humans shall. Yes, those glorious New Age Post-Humans, they shall save us at last! Glory be to Her Highness Technology, Who shall download our consciousnesses to quantum computers and resurrect us Yuppies in our new immoral nano-bodies! Yes, yessss, Oh Yes! Masters of the Universe be glorified together with Her Highness Technology!
Umm...see you in sillyConValley(); www.sillyConValley.net
JAVARUNNER
thanks for the link about LHC........just read about how they are going to fire it up in august..........
coco,
Here's a link to a New York Times article titled "At Fermilab, the Race Is on for the 'God Particle'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/science/24ferm.html?_r=3&em&ex=1185508800&en=55027d835c716973&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
And here's a link to a great YouTube on Post-Humans. Sorry, I forgot to include it in my post above.
http://www.sillyconvalley.net/buildingposthumans.html
-- JavaRunner
Pointing fingers is rude. Ever hear of guilt by association? We all have blood on our hands. Others go without because we exist. Who can justify a full stomach while your nieghbour starves?
What we do now creates the past, for what is a shadow but present cast.
The earth is not dying. Our ability to survive in the changing circumstances probably is. The orb will continue to exist and support life -- just maybe not the array of life we see now. The sooner we wake up to that fact of life, the sooner we might get our butts in gear. Because it is a matter of self-preservation, not any altruistic goal of "saving the planet."
JH: You got it on the nose. The planet existed long before we humans arrived and will continue long after we depart. The issue is not planetary survival. It's our own. And, quite frankly, I'm never quite sure what to cheer for.
A certain momentum is in place, though, and social physics probably follow the same Laws as environmental or any other physics. So, it is indeed possible that large populations may perish. If so, then be certain that those populations have already been identified and the process is underway.
I agree that prescription medication is a big part of how that will happen without any uncontrollable outrage.
Leland Mellott June 28th, 2008 12:21 pm wrote:
>>In October 1981 we entered Humanity's Next Cycle. We are now very close to the moment in which what has to be done will be done.>>
Do you have a reference on that Leland?
(Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update by Dennis Meadows places the time humanity passed the Earth's carrying capacity in that year, but I'd like to know of evidence and/or science to support what you are saying.)
The 'Tipping Point'
Greed has pushed humanity's Roller Coaster to the top of the lift and ignorant inertia will finish the job. Heckuvajob!
JAVARUNNER
weird that posthuman video..............but take consolation that if they do manage to create some hideous black hole or something with the LHC, most people will think it's just the iran 'invasion' starting...........
What would wake up and mobilize our citizens? A solid week of prime time TV broadcasting devoted to climate change with graphic visuals everyone could understand and be deeply affected by. How could this take place if all corporate media has their heads in their wallets? If ALL of us bombard one network, say ABC, with phone calls, emails, faxes, and letters demanding, under pain of sponsor boycotts, that they broadcast "Our Future At The Tipping Point" for 5 or 7 straight days, including what we must do as individuals and as nations. Those of us living near ABC offices, such as in NY and LA, could also stage noisy protests on the sidewalks outside their offices and invite CBS, NBC, and CNN to cover them (Fox still denies human-caused global warming,doesn't it? So they won't be interested). If all that doesn't work, we may have to get George Soros and Bill Gates to fund our own People's TV Network. Because most Americans don't read (or vote), TV is the best way to reach and motivate them now.
The rejection of the recent energy bill, and the Kyoto and Bali Conferences, underscore the dangerous control that special interests exercise over this administration's policies. Their distortions of scientific data typifies their unconscionable war on science.
Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns--by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, and the list goes on. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our rejection of Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if we allow this administration, guided special interests, to continue their war against our planet.
I am dreaming of another "tipping point"; that being when the Dems and the Repubs outside the beltway join together and come up with a campaign slogan for the coming congressional election--something like, "No congressperson left behind." While some good congress people would find themselves out of work, the incumbents would, at least for a while, know who they had better serve if they would like to continue living in Washington at tax payers expense.
Oh! but there would be the loss of institutional memory the critics would loudly warn. To that I would reply, "Thank God".
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
Evolution is the tool of choice. The universe, in its journey towards greater and greater complexity reaches unknowingly towards rememberance and the realization that all is one. Maybe Leland's post about Humanity's Next Cycle isn't so far out there. Evolution still exists, it always will. Everything in creation is moved by this force. Every defunct system is eventually replaced with something of greater complexity and diversity, one step closer to Realization, one step closer to "God". The system grows and grows and finally reaches a point where it collapses and a new potential arises, and evolution is there to take advantage. Are we in the process of knowing and consiously partaking in this evolutionary process?
Is our planet on that cusp?
www.oneplanetonelife.com
Dire days ahead.
So many can't as yet believe it.
In this world the powerful say not yet,
though they too can see it...yet
it is more profitable not to believe it.
So with eyes wide open, we all await
dire days ahead... when those who profit from waiting
say "You mean us ...as well as them?"
Nature is utterly JUST. No mercy. Extinction is forever.
Kill the seas and they will die.
The utter mercilessness of nature is matched only by the mercilessness of profits.
It is far more profitable for some to continue on doing much as we are... till the tipping point HITS. The attitude tipping point I mean.
That tipping point hasn't been reached where even those who profit from this rapine of the planet, will agree that it is dire indeed.
So until enough super storms happen till everyone notices they aren't going away... until it gets so hot, so fast that when the artic is absorbing solar heat... the great tipping point will be reached.
When (Please God may it only be ...if) the ice cap on Greenland suffers a catastrophic partial collapse and sea levels rise (tsunami and a whopper too) suddenly... I'm even oil company stockholders will start screaming "Why wasn't something done"!
We change attitudes or our world changes.
Summer comes... and you know... these days ... it's starting to be something to be afraid of.
Summer comes when people die of the heat...get used to the concept.
But when summer comes the pole is laid bare to the sun and Greenland's ice looms...shaking, trmbling, floating on a meltwater submerged lake, earthquakes and ...all this heat.
Summer comes. Even if you aren't yet afraid of it, your kids and grandkids will be.
Summer comes... it's the HEAT stupid.
Yeah ain't we...eyes wide open. Watch the ice cap this summer...
and please realize that Greenland's weakening ice cap looms near.
and will for many a summer to come.
Dire days ahead.
The Evolutionsts will BURN in the FIRES of HELL along with the Atheists who are crossing out the words, "In God We Trust" on the back of currency!!
The Lord shall protect the Earth, through the heroic efforts of the Christian Fellowship of the Media Moguls and Oil Chiefs to Banish the Princeton Scientists and their so-called "Theories"!!
This site:
www.realclimate.org
for a less sensationalist analysis of global warming - by the climate scientists themselves!
:o)
"If the two sides cannot overcome current disagreements..." Based on all of history as we know it, the "two sides" will never, ever, overcome current "disagreements." They haven't even been able to overcome past disagreements yet, many of which are already over 2000 years old! Only the incredibly blindly hopeful believe all will suddenly drop what they're doing and work together to "save the planet." Sure they will - right after we all agree on which God is better...
There is a positive side to all this: if the severe effects of global warming don't kick in till after 2050, most of us here will be very old or dead. I guess that's what Bush and his oil chums are betting on!!
Apparently the US military uses about 350,000 barrels of oil a day. I've also read that 80% of the cargo hauled around by the military is ... you guessed it, fuel. About the same consumption as the entire nation of Greece.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199
Our government, which is supposed to provide for the common good, is instead rapidly killing us. The EPA fights efforts to regulate CO2. The FDA enables poisoners. The Congress is currently encouraging Bush to attack Iran and giving telecoms retroactive immunity. The military violates US law by engaging in wars of aggression. The executive branch is a bunch of right-wing nut jobs doing the bidding of AIPAC, and religious nuts who think the end of the world is near .. and that's fine by them.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
That is the answer. We need to get rid of these killers and institute a government who will promote our health and safety. I suspect that won't happen until the American sheeple are getting blown away by extreme weather, roasted by heat, dying of thirst. Then it is too late. Can we hurry this process up a bit before we and our children are completly doomed?
Staying-sane: Ummmm... don't bet the farm on climate change effects holding off until 2050.
Especially if the methane beds erupt, as Kem so frequently, AND CORRECTLY points out.
When we reach a major tipping point, as it appears we have, we get into a positive feedback cycle, and it accelerates in ways we have not foreseen.
Just look at the hard data on Greenland and Antarctica to see that. Those two MAJOR ice masses are breaking up and melting hundreds of times faster than climatologists initially predicted.
Bear in mind, that if just the Greenland Ice Sheet alone breaks up and melts, the world sea levels will rise 27 meters. In just a few years we will be looking at the forced abandonment of ALL major shipping ports worldwide, possible as soon as 2015. No government in the world will be able to stave of the devastation to their economy as a result of losing infrastructure on that scale. think of having twenty or so post-Katrina New Orleans in the US alone. Now think of that happening worldwide, all at the same time.
Do you begin to get the idea?
>>kelmer - A father beat his 2 year old son to death in front of bystanders who did nothing. The tendency is that people in a group expect someone else to act.<<
Not true Kelmer. Several people tried to stop him, but they didn't act in concert. The rest were shocked. Deeply. If someone who carries a gun in their car, like me, were there, he'd be dead.
Galen - Wrong. Not 27 METERS, but 23 FEET according to Dr. Konrad Steffen, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado, Boulder. His report is available on line. Sort of a big difference.
Goose- My apologies. Mea Culpa.
But either way, drowned and destroyed is drowned and destroyed.
the party is over, folks --
cheering obama to victory ain't gonna' help
Goose2- Having a gun at hand is one of the great failings of US society. Having a gun means many don't stop to think about the consequences of using it.
So you shoot the man who is beating his child, killing him. Someone else sees you, and shoots you, thinking they are defending the man you shot. And it spreads. Soon you have a full blown riot where the police are shooting at anything that moves.
Does this sound at all familiar? Kinda like what is happening in Iraq, maybe?
If you do have a gun, what do you use that last round of ammunition for? Yourself? Or to try and take by force the supplies you did not put by for yourself?
And with the looming (and growing awareness of Peak Oil in the MSM and general populace), how long do you think modern double base smokeless gunpowder will be in production? What do you do when there *is* no more ammunition to be had?
This is the trap of the gun. It limits you. It defines your actions.
'When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.'
My toolbox has much more in it than just a hammer...
I did my part. Two years ago I left the USA and moved to the third world (Philippines). My carbon footprint is a fraction of what it used to be. I use very little electric, no AC, no hot water. I use public transportation. Almost all of my food is produced locally. Best of all, I no longer pay one penny in taxes to support the bloated US military welfare state.
The only solution to global warming and the end of cheap energy is to abandon the American consumer suburban lifestyle. Americans are to greedy, selfish, and lazy to do this. The US faces a steep decline and collapse because of this. My advice is get out while you can.
What's the elevation above sea level where you are now living ~EXPATINCEBU~? Have you ever been to the John Hays Air Force Base area there? That mountinous region of the Phillipines was still a paradise in the 50s.
Hi ~Galen~, excellent points about the Greenland ice and if the Antarctic ice continues to melt, as it is now rapidly doing, sea levels will rise over 200 feet within a very few years; maybe five or less?
And I agree totally, the year 2050 is a joke, 2020 may be optomistic the way the Arctic is now thawing. Have you seen the current data on that? ___ Oh-oh, apparantly the "tipping point" has already tipped.
Hi Kem, My home is near the ocean, about 4 meters above sea level, but I also have property in the mountains of Cebu. Originally I was reluctant to live near the ocean because of teh threat of rising sea levels but then I began thinking about it. If sea levels rise 3 or 4 meters then Every coastal city large and small in the entire world will be flooded. We are talking hundreds of million of dislocated people, not to mention loss of food and fresh water supplies. Even if you live in the mountains you are screwed. The whole world will be screwed at that point. So I might as well enjoy my life in the tropics while I can.
Kem- too bad so many other people are in the 'technology will save us' camp. They never define *what kind* of technology, do they?
It will be quite interesting to watch as all the food we now ship hundreds and thousands of miles just stops coming.
Every city, every country on Earth is only nine meals, three days, away from revolution.
And when the real shortages start, due to climate change and oil depletion, you can bet that those with the largest supply of guns (i.e. the governments) will be doing their damnedest to keep the vox populi away from their hoards, by any means, fair or foul.
And as the world's port cities become the new Atlantasi(s?), and the world economy reels under that loss, anything you do not grow, make, build or trade for yourself will be in almost impossible to meet demand.
Hang onto your audio CD's and DVD's folks. They will make great anti-crow reflectors...
Galen June writes: "Staying-sane: Ummmm... don't bet the farm on climate change effects holding off until 2050."
Well, I did say, "IF" the severe effects kick in after 2050... ;)
I could run around like a headless chicken, but what's the point? IF things are going to get bad by 2020, it's already too late!!
www.realclimate.org
Climate scientists are NOT predicting apocalypse by 2020. However, I do acknowledge that there is uncertainty, and the magnitude of the feedback effects are unknown.
But, be careful!! If you scream, "AMERICA UNDER WATER BY 2020 - SOS!!!" and it doesn't happen, climate science will be discredited.
We've already seen a movie about climate change, "The Day After Tomorrow", depict absurd climate change scenarios that have no grounding in science. "The Day After Tomorrow" is NOT what climate scientists are saying will happen.
There is a small chance of very little change, a small chance of catastrophic change, and reality - hopefully! - lies somewhere in-between.
I'm not a scientist. I can't draw my own conclusions about this. I can only quote what the scientists - rather than the media! - are saying.
The Arctic "thawing" is NOT a sign of imminent destruction. A wake up call, most certainly!
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/north-pole-notes/#more-576
Funny you should mention that. We just got back from the Saturday night Headless Chicken races - My chicken won!
>>Galen - Having a gun at hand is one of the great failings of US society. ... So you shoot the man who is beating his child, killing him. Someone else sees you, and shoots you, thinking they are defending the man you shot. And it spreads. <<
Actually it doesn't spread. Shootings are RARELY more than two people and when there are more, the first reaction is not to add to the shooting, but to clarify the situation. I don't worry about who has a gun, because here in my community most people do in the home if not the car.
Goose2- And you are in which city? I only ask so I know which one to avoid when the 'fun' starts...
Up until the age of 45 I was secular minded or non-religious, which means that I lived with the certainty that consciousness dies with the body and that there is no Supreme Being.
Then, during the month of October 1981 a formidable, transformative River of Light appeared in my mind.
By this way, the following thoughts:
"The mind's eye of our such (our consciousness) never blinks, never closes, never sleeps and never dies."
"We were never created but always were and always will be ... forever. We are immortal beings."
"We have entered humanity's next cycle. This is not another 2,000 year out-breath or out-pulse of Divine Will Intelligence; it is a Turn To Source."
"We are entering the age of woman; as in: I am Son of My Mother, nothing is higher than this."
"There will be peace on earth, universal and perpetual, up to and including last word ever spoken here."
"To murder and get away with it does not have happenability in this world. Beast in the Here : Beast in the After."
"Last shall be made first, highest shall be made lowest."
"That which is written is already written and from The Beginning."
"In Wrath of Word, come among here, all are being given actual power to destroy this world. (To worship me is to destroy me; who murders me destroys this world.)"
"Given to know, not given not to know."
"The Doubting of Doubt took all doubt away from me."
"Love is the power and infinitely so. Love is the way. There is no other way."
"Who am I? I am you. You are me."
"Humongous gas chambers have been reconstituted - out of the ashes of World War Two. (Think: Convention Centers) They are never going to be used."
"San Francisco, California is Last Place. Therefore, it is First Place. At the heart of the city is a ... gargantuan convention center."
"I also think that a light needs to be shined on St. Louis, Missouri and, as well, on the Princeton Forrestal Center."
"The end goal is world destruction in thermo nuclear holocaust."
(Over the past few years, several hundred names of people, who are or were involved in these matters, have been given to me, in dreams as well as while awake. Other information has also been made available to me by this means.)
"This world will not end."
"This world will be in a state of emergency for five years and the business of this world's people will be that of saving lives."
"Nothing before its hour, everything in its day."
"It is the thoughts themselves."
Leyland, please stop smoking those funny cigarettes!
Problem is our Western world is shackled to oil. It will require severe global changes to stir us into action and by then it might well be too late.
P.S. What does Of Mice And Men have to do with America? Check my blog!
www.dangerouscreation.com