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On the Brink: Planet Near Irreversible Point of Global Warming
Scientists issue dire call for action on climate change at conference; we must stop warming or "cross the threshold"
We may have already passed the tipping points on global warming, say scientists at the Planet Under Pressure conference. At the London conference, scientists are giving a bleak view of the future of the planet due to catastrophic damage and growth by humans, saying we are close to the irreversible point of global warming.
Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's climate change institute, gave an urgent warning that humanity needs to act radically on climate change. "We can ... cap temperature rise at two degrees, or cross the threshold beyond which the system shifts to a much hotter state," he said.
Bob Watson, former head of the UN's climate panel and chief advisor to Britain's environment ministry, stated that the world has already passed any hope of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius, and stated that "we just have not acted. The need for action is becoming more and more urgent with every day that passes."
Martin Rees of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of sciences, stated this this century "is the first when one species -- ours -- has the planet's future in its hands."
* * *
Reuters: Global warming close to becoming irreversible - scientists
LONDON - The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday.
Scientific estimates differ but the world's temperature looks set to rise by six degrees Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to rise uncontrollably.
As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests. [...]
In a worst case scenario, 30 to 63 billion tonnes of carbon a year could be released by 2040, rising to 232 to 380 billion tonnes by 2100. This compares to around 10 billion tonnes of CO2 released by fossil fuel use each year.
Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has also turned oceans more acidic as they absorb it. In the past 200 years, ocean acidification has happened at a speed not seen for around 60 million years, said Carol Turley at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
This threatens coral reef development and could lead to the extinction of some species within decades, as well as to an increase in the number of predators.
* * *
Agence France-Presse: Shadow of 'Anthropocene' falls over Rio Summit
Man's catastrophic damage to the environment and disparities between rich and poor head the daunting challenges facing the Rio Summit in June, experts said on Monday.
The summit must sweep away a system that lets reckless growth destroy the planet's health yet fails to help billions in need, they said.
"This century is special in the Earth's history. It is the first when one species -- ours -- has the planet's future in its hands," said Martin Rees of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of sciences.
"We've invented a new geological era: the Anthropocene," he said referring to an epoch shaped by Man, not nature. [...]
"Under a worst-case scenario, it's very likely, I think, that the Earth's system will move to a new state of some sort, with a very severe challenge to contemporary civilisation," said Steffen. "Some people have even talked about a collapse." [...]
The UN's goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is already out of reach, said Bob Watson, former head of the UN's climate panel and chief advisor to Britain's environment ministry, as he presented the laureates' study.
"If you look at the commitments today from governments around the world, we've only got a 50-50 shot at a 3 C (5.4 F) world, almost no chance of a 2 C (3.6 F) world, and to be quite honest I would say it's not unlikely that we will hit a 5 C (9.0 F) world," said Watson.
"That is clearly a world with significant adverse consequences for ecological systems, for socio-economic systems and for human health."
He added: "We have to realise that we are looking at a loss of biodiversity that is unprecedented in the last 65 million years... We are clearly entering the (planet's) sixth mass extinction."
* * *
Welcome to the Anthropocene
A 3-minute journey through the last 250 years of our history, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the Rio+20 Summit. The film charts the growth of humanity into a global force on an equivalent scale to major geological processes.
The film was commissioned by the Planet Under Pressure conference, London 26-29 March, a major international conference focusing on solutions. planetunderpressure2012.net
The film is part of the world's first educational webportal on the Anthropocene, commissioned by the Planet Under Pressure conference, and developed and sponsored by anthropocene.info
Welcome to the Anthropocene from WelcomeAnthropocene on Vimeo.
* * *
Richard Black: BBC
Welcome to the Anthropocene - what now?
This conference, Planet Under Pressure, has assembled several thousand delegates from academia, business, campaign groups, and the occasional government representative.
It's designed to get people from science and the policy field together three months before the Rio+20 summit in June, to discuss where we are, where we might be going, and how the supertanker workings of our global society can be turned round, if that's what needs doing.
Much of what I've so far read and heard, though, seems very familiar:
"we need" to adopt a different development model
"we have to" move to more efficient farming
"we have to realise that" current western consumption patterns aren't sustainable.Will one more conference, one more set of reports and - in June - one more global summit bring about these changes?
At the end of Monday's morning session, conference host Nisha Pillai asked the packed hall of delegates for a show of hands on this most basic question - will the changes that "we need" happen?
The noes outvoted the ayes.
Best wishes for a balmy Anthropocene.
Comments
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169 Comments so far
Show AllRe: "It took all of about 10 seconds for me to know my relevance and place on Earth. We really are a speck of dust in this planet's history."
What you say is true of both the Earth and the Universe ----- and there is another side to the coin. It can be said that to be human is to live a paradox - since, existentially, we live in a realm that is "in-between:" We are neither infallible "gods" or simply "beasts." Centuries earlier Pascal said: "Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast."
Then again, we need to acknowledge that humans - when they play God - in fact act in ways that are much, much worst than animals could ever be.
See this post above for a solution to your problem:
Posted by Mairead Mar 27 2012 - 7:20pm
anytime you desire a ¶ break enter the command <p> sometime i type a long unbroken string of words with <p> s and the formatting comes out as i hoped.
~Aleph Null~,,,, > quote > ("All that is necessary, is to do as Dr. James Hansen has advised in his book,,, that is, reduce our carbon output by 6% a year and plant billions of trees,,,, and by the year 2100,,,, we will be alright.").
~Alycon~,,, > quote> ("the MAJOR problem is the "meat industry"... We must all stop eating meat and dairy products and that will reduce human's carbon output world wide by (51%) and all will be well.")...... (51%)?. Hmmmm??? Okay Alycon, if you say so.
~mairead~,,, > quote > ("The problem is too many people, we must stop having babies world wide and only one baby per married couple and in a century or so, all will be well").
Excellent...Thank you all for your astuste advice and the means necessary to save our dumb asses and the planet from becomingg Venus number 2.
Of course it might also be smart to take a peek at the situation in the Arctic area of the planet, where a few (trillion tons) of natural gas, methane, CH4, is very soon in our future going to be escaping into our atmosphere and that is by far the most dangerous (tipping point) to global warming.
When just a few billion tons of the Arctic's methane gas starts spewing out into our atmosphere, it is going to make this oil well blowout in the North Sea seem to be like a pimple on an elephant's ass.
But don't try to replace the coal fired power plants around the world with clean energy, ckea other than nuclear,... Just stop eating meat and all us guys put on a condom and all will be well... We do that and we won't even have to do as Aleph Null says is all that is necessary.
It IS too late. There is no closing down and shutting off. We have need of technology for a common daily mask in order to breathe, a suit to stave off heat and sun, a suit to stay warm in extreme cold, large boats to save people in floods, and the most important...an end to all war efforts in order to fund this large need of technology. I will not hold my breath, and I offer a deep deep heart felt apology to the future generations who must endure our unbelievable stupidity, arrogance, and loss of humane concern for anyone but our own pathetic selfish shitheads.
Do you know how to use a spreadsheet? Use it and prove me wrong. Do the calculations. I'm not very good with numbers, so perhaps I made some dumb mistake. But you have to prove it against me, not just handwave an objection.
I made 2 simplifying assumptions, neither in my favor: (a) that everyone lives to be 100 and (b) that everyone chooses to have their 0.5 baby while they're members of the 20-24yo cohort (the pop data I found used 4-year cohorts).
So go ahead. Let's see what you get.
Fixing that error yields, presuming a 2020 start:
- Peak population of 8.855G occurs in 2044
- Restoration of the current 7G pop (7.4G) occurs in 2068
- We would reach 2G (the population last seen in 1930) around 2110. That might put us out of the woods, or at least able to see the edge from there
- We would reach 1G (not seen since 1830) around 2128
- And a presumptively sustainable 17th-c. level of ~500M where everyone can enjoy the full-provided amenities of the time, around 2140
What that revision says is that it will be a longer haul for us to avoid sacrificing innocent people (I include non-humans) to starvation, disease, and violence.We'll have to be less willing to tolerate greed and stupidity, more willing to act together in solidarity, and 100% determined to prevail regardless of the opposition. If we flinch, we're fscked.
Well done!
Overpopulation certainly is an issue, but it is not the reason we are in extremely serious jeopardy of all being eradicated due to runaway, irreversible global warming. If you care to bear with me for a few moments, I will explain.
If there were no humans on Earth and there were 17,000 active volcanoes which had been emitting as much Co2 as that from the volcano on Hawaii for the last 200 years, the planet would be in a state of severe global warming.... Then the Arctic's methane gas would be releasing from the melting permafrost and the tipping point to global warming would trigger..... That natural global warming event would soon kill almost all life on the planet.... Okay, ya with me so far?
But add humans without the 17,000 active volcanoes as described above... If the only humans on the planet were now those in China, India and the United States, and those humans burned as much coal and oil as we currently are doing and had been doing for 200 years, the near same situation would exist that is occurring now,,, which is sever AGW caused global warming..
And that would happen as it is happening if all of the humans were vegetarians and there was no meat or animal husbandry industries.... It's burning fossil fuels ~mairead~ ,which is the problem and the problem which needs to be corrected, NOW.
I realize you, ~Alycon~ and ~Aleph Null~ all disagree and Alycon posts links for articles which say the meat industry is responsible for (51%) of AGW greenhouse gas emissions, but that is nonsense, no matter who wrote those type of articles.
It's burning coal we have to stop doing now, right away quick for (starters),, plant billions of new trees, stop deforestation and we could do that and replace the coal fired power plants with solar, wind and geothermal power plants and maintain a decent lifestyle and save the planet and the life on the planet from extinction.
"We are America's largest companies, and we have a plan to save you from the wide range of catastrophes that are likely to come from our increasingly unstable climate. While others look to Senate bills or UN accords for a climate solution, we look to our best engineers."
"And our expert team has come up with a solution in perfect accord with our values. Technological. Profitable. And, dare we say, beautiful."
SurvivaBall
WayneWR attributes to me a phrase I never wrote. The putative quotations of others are probably also misattributions. Evidently, WayneWR feels it is appropriate to use quotation marks around his faulty recollections of other people's statements. Truthful writers reserve quotation marks for verbatim citations.
The statement misattributed to me relates to findings of James Hansen in his Case for Young People paper and elsewhere. When Hansen's findings are mischaracterized, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight, and to encourage people to consult Hansen's work directly. Hansen is an excellent explainer.
Hansen's analysis proceeds in careful steps to examine critical aspects of our ecological crisis and the minimal steps necessary:
My own attitude toward what Hansen says is unimportant. For what it's worth, I have not yet found any better analysis or more practical discussion regarding the level of emission reductions and reforestation necessary to restore climate stability to planet Earth.
A consistent theme in Hansen's presentations is the price of procrastination. Because CO2 persists in the atmosphere for millenia, a delay of mere decades can mean thousands of years of more severe climate instability. Discussion of whether the measures Hansen outlines or more stringent measures are necessary is somewhat academic in the current context - we're not doing anything at all:
That is what Dr. James Hansen say is all we have to do to prevent runaway, irreversible global warming…. And Dr. Hansen is terribly wrong and so is Aleph Null to continue to repeat it.
A reduction of only (6%) a year of our carbon output world wide is not going to help do squat to prevent runaway, irreversible global warming.... For one thing if that we ALL we did as Aleph Null claims is all that is necessary, the atmospheric Co2 level would not even begin to reduce until near the year 2040.
If we don't reduce our carbon output by at least (50%) beginning now, we won't be here by the year 2040.. The reason for that is the rapidly melting Arctic ice and permafrost and the release of billions and then trillions of tons of methane gas into our atmosphere... That will kill all of us and if any aren't concerned about dying or seeing their children die by then, then listen to Aleph Null and his team of pro coal supporters.
Dr. Hansen does not deny we are in serious trouble, nor does Aleph Null, but Hansen has ignored the Arctic's ticking time bomb, did not compute the release of billions of tons of methane into his computer modeling and Null has downplays that clearly obvious danger.
The problem is, Dr. Hansen ignored the Arctic methane threat as did almost all of the other armchair (climate) scientists and wrote his peer reviewed papers, peer reviewed by other armchair climate scientists and a book and he is now not going to say he was mistaken… That is a sad scientific trait of scientists, which is also known as human nature.
So I did not misrepresent what Aleph Null has continually written here ever since he arrived about 7 months ago and Null and his sidekicks ~mairead~ and ~Alycon~ support one another with excellent writing skills with comments that sound so wise and knowledgeable.
We could reduce our carbon output by more than (50%) and have that accomplished within the next three to four years if a massive world wide program to replace the coal fired plants with clean energy was initiated and laws passed to stop deforestation and indeed plant billions of trees.
But Aleph Null does not want to see that happen... Null downplays the Arctic methane threat and is not concerned that the Arctic Ocean will be ice free by 2015... Those type of things are exactly what the coal ad shipping industries wish to hear. So if Aleph Null and his trusty crew of supporters are not closet coal or big shipping shills, they may as well be, for they are doing exactly what pro coal and shipping corporations shills would do.
Now Null may deny all of this, but his hundreds of previous posted comment here at CD backup all I have written on this post. .
Again, WayneWR is either so ignorant he doesn't know what quotation marks are supposed to mean, or he doesn't care. Either way, he lies when he attributes this quotation to me, again. Thanks to Google, it is quite easy to prove that this is a lie.
The phrase "our carbon output" is one of WayneWR's verbal quirks (not one of mine). If you enter this Google search, you'll see that I have never used the phrase, except once when accurately quoting a statement by WayneWR, who often uses the phrase:
WayneWR would argue that his paraphrase accurately captures the sense of something I may have said - but quotation marks are not meant for paraphrases. It is blatantly deceitful to put quotation marks around a paraphrase:
If WayneWR is going to keep repeating a lie about someone, he should choose one which doesn't so immediately expose him as a liar - unless he doesn't care about people knowing what he is.
That is what you wrote Aleph Null, many times, and whether you used the word "output" or not is irreverent. But you are very adept at playing word games.
You continually hawk what Dr. Hanson recommends is all we have to do is to reduce our carbon output by (6%) a year and plant billions of trees and by 2100 we will have reduced the atmospheric Co2 level to (350 ppm)... That is all that would be necessary to prevent the soon to arrive irreversible global warming? __ No it is actually pathetic.
Do you deny that is what Dr. Hansen has propose is all we have to do? You cannot deny it as it is what he has proposed and what you have continually written is al that is necessary.... It is you who is being deceitful here Aleph Null, not I.
You see? To speak of the honest use of quotation marks strikes WayneWR as "playing word games." This is his little song and dance: when he's caught in a lie, he pretends to be too stupid to understand what he's been doing.
Exact phrases (quoted phrases) in Google have a ten-word limit. I can append site:commondreams.org to see if anyone here has ever written the exact phrases WayneWR attributes to Alcyon and Mairead, respectively:
No results from either search* - unsurprisingly indicating that a person who is willing to lie once will lie over and over again.
* After Google scans this page into its database, the earliest result these searches will return would be this page.
Aleph Null is 100% correct on one point... I should not have used " " quotation marks.
I should have written (to pharaphrase), Aleph Null, Alycon and Mairead, they have continually writtten _________.
Never make such an error with a shill, they will make a big issue of it and will then deny what they have written.
With whomever you are dealing, honesty is the best policy.
Fortunately the solutions are easy : Free universal education at all ages and levels, health care for all, fifteen hour work week, compost toilets, rainwater collection, super low cost housing that pays for itself, more music, more art, and way more fun.
Be patient, all these steps are becoming much easier, everyday; corporatism faces increasing friction from humanity's natural ally, Mother Earth. Start now. Stay in school, go back to school, quit buying corporate crap; plan a new career based upon reduced consumption and cooperation. Withdraw support for both State and private pirate corporatism. Keep in mind that crime dropped 20% for Occupy Oakland. We either pull this off or go extinct. Smile with confidence knowing Earth works so humans can live well, with justice for all life.
It's so much fun to play the blame game, isn't it?
Good time to re-read Jack London "To build a fire" and CS Lewis "The Abolition of Man." Better still, read it aloud to your children-- even if they are in their 30's. Afterwards, you might pour yourself a glass of good wine, turn out the lights, and ponder the darkness.
But really, playing the blame game, that's sort of like Ivan the Terrible screaming at death when his stroke hit him.
< b r > < b r >
Note that there is a space between each character. If you eliminate the spaces, you will insert a blank line between your last line of text and your next line of text.
That is the method I used to separate this line from the above line.
Just a thought. It makes reading postings such as the one abvove much easier.
Thank you.
Furthermore...
Posted by hummingbird Mar 28 2012 - 10:00am.
The method suggested by hummingbird also works nicely and is simpler.
I used that method to separate this line from the above line.
I doubt that we will ever arrive at Kurzweil's forecasted technological advances. Unless we find a way to terminate further development of ever more sophisticated weapons systems we will never reach that magic 2050 date with its medical advances allowing people to radically extend their lifespans while preserving quality of life through the use of nanobots, etc.
If a computer is ever developed that can pass the Turing test of human intelligence, possibly by 2029, what are the odds that it will not be turned toward even more increasingly speedily developed weapons of war?
Sentient artificial intelligences, developed by men with warfare on their minds will most likely exhibit the flawed moral thinking of the humans that developed them. The line between humans and machines will blur as machines attain human-level intelligence and begin to plot the complete destruction of the planet.
Of course we are 'near' the tipping point. It's just behind us is all....
They went to a freshly plowed field, so they could be sure the planet would hear them. First they argued that CO2 was not a greenhouse gas, and the Earth said nothing. Next they said the rise in CO2 was not caused by man, and again the Earth said nothing. It was a clear day, so next they turned wit and wisdom on the Sun and they told the Sun it was it's spots that were the cause of the warming Earth. The Sun said nothing, in protest.
The debaters looked quite pleased with themselves, and the fact that they left their opponents speechless. They had successfully argued with nature itself and had won hands down. They kicked the dirt, the Earth itself in disgust, then headed off to their country club to celebrate their victory over the Earth and the Sun. They concluded they were indeed the masters of the universe.
The Democrats not to be out done, headed out the that same field and asked the Earth, "Say something of you think we don't care about you!" The Earth sat there silently. Next they told the Earth, "We know it is human activity that is causing you to heat up, and we are planning on doing something about it eventually but, now is not a good time because of the Economy. If you understand and agree with us, there is no need to say anything, your silence will be your affirmation". Again not a peep from the planet. The Democrats were so happy with the planet being so agreeable with them that they got their rakes out and raked some of the plowed field to make it look pretty. Happy with themselves they headed off to the country club.
Now come on people do you think are leaders are fools or something? Relax go out and buy something, they got our backs covered when it comes to this climate change B/S...
1) The planet, because of the civilization humans have created, has passed or will shortly pass a point of no return that leads to a runaway global warming disaster.
2) There is no way that civilization will stop it (greed, inertia, propaganda, ignorance, fear, stupidity, ineffective too-little-too-late responses and geo-engineering hacks, pick your poison(s)).
Handily, the disaster ends when the cause of it ends: civilization. It's nature, and nature bends inexorably towards balance one way or another. WIll there be tragedies along the way? You betcha! People, animals, plants, vast ecosystems, entire webs of species all dumped screaming into a horrific planetary charnel house as nature hits reset on this little mistake known as mankind.
What was that last line from 'Easy Rider'? "We blew it."