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TechnoratiThe Most Important Number on Earth
Sooner or later, you have to draw a line. We've spent the last 20 years in the opening scenes of what historians will one day call the Global Warming Era-the preamble to the biggest drama that humans have ever staged, the overture that hints at the themes that will follow for centuries to come. But none of the notes have resolved, none of the story lines yet come into clear view. And that's largely because until recently we didn't know quite where we were. From the moment in 1988 when a nasa scientist named James Hansen told Congress that burning coal and gas and oil was warming the earth, we've struggled to absorb this one truth: The central fact of our economic lives (the ubiquitous fossil fuel that developed the developed world) is wrecking the central fact of our physical lives (the stable climate and sea level on which civilization rests). For a while, and much longer in the US than elsewhere, we battled over whether this was true. But warm year succeeded warm year and that fight began to subside. Instead, the real question became, is this a future peril, the kind of thing you take out a reasonably priced insurance policy to guard against? Or is it the oh-my-lord crisis you drop everything else to deal with? Will Hitler be happy with the Sudetenland, or is the world going to spend every cent it has, not to mention tens of millions of lives, fighting him off? Trouble, or TROUBLE? These last 12 months, we've found out.
It was September 2007 that the tide began to turn. Every summer Arctic sea ice melts, and every fall it refreezes. The amount of open water has been steadily increasing for three decades, a percent or two every year-it's been going at about the pace that the hairline recedes on a middle-aged man. It was worrisome, and scientists said all the summer ice could be gone by 2070 or so, which is an eyeblink in geologic time but an eternity in politician time. In late summer of last year, though, the melt turned into a rout-it was like those stories of people whose hair turns gray overnight. An area the size of Colorado was disappearing every week; the Northwest Passage was staying wide open all September, for the first time in history. Before long the Arctic night mercifully descended and the ice began to refreeze, but scientists were using words like "astounding." They were recalculating-by one nasa scientist's estimate the summer Arctic might now be free of ice by 2012. Which in politician years is "beginning of my second term."
The key phrase, really, was "tipping point." As in "I'd say we are reaching a tipping point or are past it for the ice. This is a strong indication that there is an amplifying mechanism here." That's Pål Prestrud of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo. Or this, from Mark Serreze, of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado: "When the ice thins to a vulnerable state, the bottom will drop out...I think there is some evidence that we may have reached that tipping point, and the impacts will not be confined to the Arctic region."
"Tipping point" is not, in this context, an idle buzzword. It means that the physical world is taking over the process that humans began. We poured carbon into the atmosphere, trapping excess heat; that excess heat began to melt ice. When that ice was melted, there was less white up north to reflect the sun's rays back out to space, and more blue ocean to absorb them. Events began to feed upon themselves. And in the course of the last year, we've seen the same thing happening in other systems. In April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report showing that 2007 had seen a sudden and dramatic surge in the amount of methane, another heat-trapping gas, in the atmosphere. Apparently, one reason is that when we burned all that fossil fuel and began raising the temperature, we also started melting the permafrost-melting eight times more of it in some places over two decades than had thawed for the previous 1,000 years. And as that frozen soil thaws, it releases methane; enough of it now bubbles out to make "hot spots" in lakes and ponds that don't freeze during the deepest part of the Siberian winter. The more methane, the more heat, the more methane. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The final piece of the puzzle came early this year, and again from James Hansen. Twenty years after his crucial testimony, he published a paper with several coauthors called "Target Atmospheric CO2" (.pdf). It put, finally, a number on the table-indeed it did so in the boldest of terms. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted," it said, "paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
Get that? Let me break it down for you. For most of the period we call human civilization, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hovered at about 275 parts per million. Let's call that the Genesis number, or depending on your icons, the Buddha number, the Confucius number, the Shakespeare number. Then, in the late 18th century, we started burning fossil fuel in appreciable quantities, and that number started to rise. The first time we actually measured it, in the late 1950s, it was already about 315. Now it's at 385, and growing by more than 2 parts per million annually.
And it turns out that that's too high. We never had a number before, so we never knew whether we'd crossed a red line. We half guessed and half hoped that the danger zone might be 450 or 550 parts per million-those were still a little ways in the distance. Therefore we could get away with thinking like the young Augustine: "Lord, make me chaste, but not yet." Not anymore. We have been told by science that we're already over the line.
And so we're now in the land of tipping points. We know that we've passed some of them-Arctic sea ice is melting, and so is the permafrost that guards those carbon stores. But the logic of Hansen's paper was clear. Above 350, we are at constant risk of crossing other, even worse, thresholds, the ones that govern the reliability of monsoons, the availability of water from alpine glaciers, the acidification of the ocean, and, perhaps most spectacularly, the very level of the seas. It is at least conceivable that instead of a slow, steady rise in the height of the oceans, we could see rapid melt in Greenland and the West Antarctic, where much of the world's frozen water resides. We can't rule out, warns Hansen, a sea level rise of up to 20 feet this century. Plug that into Google Earth and watch waterfront developments turn into high-priced reefs. We can't rule out, in other words, the collapse of human society as we've known it. "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted..." We should add the phrase to the oath of office for every politico on the third planet.
So what does this mean? If you took 350 to be the most important number on the planet, what would it imply?
In essence, it means that we've got to transform the world's economy far more quickly than we'd hoped. Almost everyone knows that this transformation is coming-that by century's end we won't be relying on fossil fuel, both because the oil will have run out and because the environmental damage will be intense. But the question is how quickly. The kind of change envisioned before last year was still a little leisurely-maybe the developed world cutting its carbon emissions 15 or 20 percent by 2020. That's far more than the Bush administration or its energy-industry cronies would go for, of course-at ExxonMobil's annual meeting last spring, ceo Rex Tillerson said he envisioned a world that still used fossil fuel for two-thirds of its power in 2030. A world where change came slowly enough that everyone could make every last penny off their sunk investments in coal mines and oil platforms. And a world where politicians didn't need to raise the price of carbon steeply, and hence didn't need to arouse voters.
But the 350 world looks different. We're not worried we might have a weight problem. We've been to the doctor and the doctor has said, "Your cholesterol is too high. Scaring me. You're in the danger zone. You need to change your diet and then you need to pray that you get back down where you're supposed to be before the stroke that's coming at you." When that happens, you clean the cheese out of the refrigerator and go cold turkey.
In energy terms, that would look like this:
[ 1 ] No more new coal plants, because although the world still has immense amounts of coal, it's immensely dirty. And the people who tell you about clean coal are blowing smoke-literally.
[ 2 ] A cap on the amount of carbon the country can produce-which, in essence, is a tax. America would say, just as it does now with sulfur from coal plants, "We're only going to release so much carbon every year." CO2 would stop being free; in fact, it would become expensive. In order to simplify the process, the upstream producer who mines, imports, or sells the fossil fuel would get the tab. ExxonMobil would have to pay dearly for a permit to release x amount of carbon, a cost it would pass on to consumers. Then those consumers would use less, and markets would go to work figuring out all the possible ways to cut demand and boost renewables.
[ 3 ] An international agreement, including China and India, to do the same thing around the world.
Now, these are three of the hardest tasks we've even thought about since we took on Hitler. They go to the very heart of the way our economy operates: We get most of our electricity from fossil fuels, any increase in the price of energy affects every single part of the economy, and China and India are pulling people out of poverty largely by burning cheap coal. If you're a person who uses a lot of fossil fuel, i.e. an American, then they're unappealing. If you're a person who would like to use even a little energy, i.e. almost anyone in the developing world, then they're maddening. And yet they are what the physics and chemistry of the situation dictate. So the question becomes, how to make them happen?
The logic imposed by 350 is fairly straightforward. In order to keep Americans from rebelling, we need to take the money we're charging ExxonMobil for those pollution permits and return it to the taxpayers-everyone needs to get a check every month to, in essence, buy us all off. To help make us whole for the price rises that will inevitably come, the price rises that will do the work of wringing fossil fuel out of the economy. ExxonMobil would pay, then we'd pay-but we'd get some of the money back in the mail. We've got to make the switch so fast that it's going to be brutally expensive-think $10 gas-and our democracy will never support it for long without that monthly check.
But we can't give ourselves back all the money. Because some of it is needed to make the rest of the world whole-to build windmills for the Indians so they won't use the same cheap coal that we used for 200 years in order to get rich. That is, we're going to need a Marshall Plan for carbon-with the same mix of idealism and self-interest that motivated the Marshall Plan in Hitler's wake.
We also need serious investment in infrastructure, both technological and human. For instance, concepts like concentrated solar power-those big mirror arrays in the desert-have gained real momentum in the last 18 months. Former Clinton administration energy analyst Joseph Romm recently calculated that such arrays could provide America with all of its electricity from a 92-square-mile grid in the Southwest desert-but only if promoted via loan guarantees for the entrepreneurs who build them and a new generation of transcontinental transmission lines. Meanwhile, demand is skyrocketing for small rooftop solar panels, but increasingly there's a shortage of trained installers, which means our community colleges need money to start training them. No matter what the price of energy, homes aren't going to insulate themselves-this is the great opening for a green-jobs revolution. (See "The Truth About Green Jobs.")
You'll note here I'm talking more about what we should do in the US House (and Senate) in the next year or two than which bulbs you should be changing in your house. diy conservation makes great practical sense, but we won't save the planet that way. One by one, trying to do the right thing, we add up to...not nearly enough. You cannot make the math work that way-there are too many sockets and too many tailpipes and most of all too much inertia for voluntary action to do the trick. It didn't work when President Bush made voluntary reduction by corporations his global warming "policy," and it won't work fast enough with individuals either.
Which is not to say that life at home doesn't need to change. It does-and it will, once we've taken the political step of making the price of carbon reflect the damage it does to the environment. Look at what happened this past year when the price of gas finally rose far enough to get our attention. We began riding trains and buses in record numbers. Total miles driven fell, sharply, for the first time since we started keeping records in 1942. We groused and moaned and we started to change. General Motors decided to sell its Hummer factory.
If we get that check every month to cover some of the damage, it will help attenuate the very real heat-or-eat dilemma that will grip many people this coming winter, but the incentive to change will still be there. Buses and bikes. Smaller homes that are easier to heat. Solar panels, bought on the installment plan with loans paid off from the power generated on your roof. Local food (and lots more local farmers). Vacations in the neighborhood-no more jetting off for the weekend.
You can see every one of these trends in embryo already, driven by the run-up in energy prices that we've seen so far. The quick contraction of the airline industry. The collapse in home values in the distant suburbs, while homes along the commuter rail lines fare better. Again the question is all about pace-what will make them happen fast enough, across a wide enough swath of the planet. Al Gore set the example with his call for a 10-year conversion to noncarbon electricity. It's at the outer edge of doable, and the outer edge is where we need to be. We'll have plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on sale by 2010. The question is, can we have nothing else on sale by 2020? We built more than half of the interstate highway system in a decade. Would rebuilding our rail networks to a European standard be all that much harder? Can we get the price of energy up quickly enough to get markets on the task of finding a low-carbon way of life that works? And by works, I mean reverses the flow of carbon into the atmosphere. Because physics and chemistry won't reward good intentions. Methane is seriously uninterested in compromise. Permafrost, notoriously, refuses to bargain. Even the absolute political power represented by King Canute couldn't hold back the rising seas. Those forces will only pay attention if we can scramble back below 350.
Forcing that pace requires a new kind of politics. It requires forging a consensus that this toughest of all changes must happen. The consensus must be broad, it must come quickly, and it must encompass the whole earth-they don't call it global warming for nothing.
The list of things on which we've achieved a broad and deep global consensus is pretty much limited to...Coke Is It. And that took billions of dollars and several decades, and it involved inducing people to drink sugar water. The odds against a strong global movement about anything tougher than that are low, with language barriers, religious barriers, cultural barriers. And we start from such incredibly different places-Americans use 12 times the energy of sub-Saharan Africans.
And yet we do have this one tool that at least offers the possibility, a tool that wasn't fully there even a few years ago. The Internet-and its attendant technologies, like cell phones and texting-does link up most of the known world at this point. You can get pretty far back of beyond in most of the world, and someone in that village has a mobile.
And we have a number-350. The most important number on earth. If the Internet has a cosmic purpose, this could be it-to take that number and spread it everywhere on the planet, so that everyone, even if they knew little else about climate change, understood that it represented a kind of safety, a bulwark against the monsoon turning erratic, the sea rising over their fields, the mosquito spreading up their mountain.
I'm part of a group of people calling ourselves 350.org. Our goal is simple-to try to get people everywhere to spread that number. We've started finding musicians and artists, athletes and video makers, and most of all activists, the kinds of people who are working to save watersheds or babies, or to educate girls or to block dams, or any of the other thousand lovely things that won't happen if we allow the basic physical stability of the planet to come unglued. We need a lot of noise, and we need it fast, in the scant months-14 now-before the world meets in Copenhagen next December to draw up a new climate treaty. Because one clear implication of 350 is that that treaty is our last real chance to get it right. If we don't, then all we'll be dealing with is the consequences. Once the ocean really starts to rise, dike building is pretty much the only project.
It's not clear if a vocal world citizenry will be enough to beat inertia and vested interest. If 350 emerges as the clear bar for success or failure, then the odds of the international community taking effective action increase, though the odds are still long. Still, these are the lines it is our turn to speak. To be human in 2008 is to rise in defense of the planet we have known and the civilization it has spawned.
112 Comments so far
Show AllI predict that we will not be able to act collectively in our own interest.
We will wallow and die in our own effluents... some of us aware of what is happening but most unable to even comprehend why the planet is dying around them.
It's some kind of tragedy of the commons... pursuit of individual interest works massively against collective interests.... we have limited ability to see, as animals, beyond self, family and tribe. Abstractions like "planet", "ecosystem" and "all people" elude us.
Consciousness is funny that way.
If you want to do something to reverse catastrophic climate change, check-out the other article on this page entitled, "Reverse Climate Change: Reduce Greenhouse Gases 80% below 1990 levels by 2025"
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We will succeed with your help. Please visit our website, now and do 3 things:
1. Sign our petition and share the link with friends, family, neighbors and co-workers.
2. Donate to hottpac.org and make our important work possible.
3. Sign-up to host a housemeeting.
KS
Appalachia, Wise County, Virginia THIRD WORLD AMERICA. http://www.wisecountyissues.com can't stand anymore of
THE COAL INDUSTRIES 'prosperity '
The dinosaurs, with their walnut sized brains, survived for over 100 million years.
They might still be ruling the planet if not for a well aimed asteroid.
Humans, with their large complex brains, will barely make it 2 million years.
The evolution of life on the planet will continue without us.
Humans aren't even a blip on the timeline of this immensely old planet which is fully 1/3 the age of the universe itself.
Three cheers for the next dominant species!!
A trip to my health club on a Saturday contains most of the elements of the problem:
1) It's not unusual to see twenty minivans in a row in the parking lot.
2) Usually the mother has three or more children in tow.
3) The kids have computerized interactive video-game exercise rooms.
4) When the family leaves they often stop by the local Wendy's or McDonalds to eat.
5) Then they most likely return to their homes, most in the community are in the 3,000 sq. foot size.
=======================
** I can almost GUARANTEE you that none of them will come across Mr. McKibben's article in MoJo or CD, nor would they care to read it if suggested.
They MAY put in energy efficient lightbulbs if their friends were doing it too, but not if they're not stylish.
Ding, ding, ding! What do we DO about these Aholes?
What can the 'little' man, who's barely making ends meet in all good faith do, except use only what he or she needs? You raise gas sky-high, then you impoverish many more. And who will be driving most of the gas-guzzling SUV's once they're traded in for 40K hybrid cars? You guessed it: the poor. There are smaller cars (such as the TATA) that sell for about 2-6K, so why can't we bring them here??? I bet if the big 3 started making them, they'd clean up in this economic downturn.
Also, since we all need electricity, the government could subsidize power production for wind and solar power, but they would have to get a guarantee from the utility companies (meaning regulation) to insure that they use the funds to reduce residential rates. Otherwise, there is no point. They'll just pocket the money and gouge us like the pharmaceutical companies do.
Something has to give, but our present societal structure is not conducive to slowing global warming. Nothing short of a disaster is likely to change it but, according to the article, then it will be too late.
A lot of the working class in my city live and have jobs in the city and don't own cars at all. There are a lot of jobs and homes in the city where a car is not needed. We need to promote more such places.
---USAn---
No don't cut your trees we really do need more of them. They not only turn CO2 into oxygen they also absorb other pollutants in the ground and in the air. Every fence line in this country should be planted in trees. Every open area on our highways should be planted with trees. That should be a government mandate.
Rickster
Now I know you're an idiot. Cars and trees don't mix at highway speeds. That's why there are grassy medians or maybe shrubs. Just think of those pictures of cars wrapped around tree trunks.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
I guess you don't know what an open area is. A grassy median is not an open area. There are lots of open areas on our highways that could be safely planted in trees. One area is the open area inside of a loop. You know them places were you really need to slow down a bunch to keep from going off the road.
You seem to be a person who engages mouth before using the brain brain. Maybe I'm wrong it could be you don't have any imagination.
Rickster
Nanoo
Wow, these comments are really something. I can't help but feel discouraged myself. The readers here acknowledge the fact that there are too few of us that really care, along with the measures taken so far is too little too late. I could have let my land be clear cut for some big bucks in the past 10 years. I suppose I still could sell what remaining good timber I have left, go travel and have a good time. But then I wouldn't want to live here anymore without the trees and I love these trees. What about the deer and the grouse that eat the trees, along with those squirrels. What about the bald eagles and the pileated woodpeckers that enjoy those dead standing trees. Generally speaking, people really are overrated and that's why I don't live around them.
Getting back to the problem, I suggest rationing energy. That would curb the rich. We all know usual, cut the military and fix the trade situation. Stop developing. Ah face it, the US is in the shithouse, it's over. The empire is finished and it's time to break this big country up. My friends, time is Not on our side.
Mr. McKibben, the live and let live liberalism isn't working. Try reframing the problem. The problem is the elite establishment perpetrating its class war aggression against the people, pushing them into bondage, to fuel the empire. Why do you fail to illuminate the actual problem? Why do you insist on illuminating the symptoms but not the underlying problem? Don't you see that the elites are exploiting liberalism? Purge the elite establishment from Washington! This is how you curb global warming! Re-frame the problem RESPONSIBLY for a change!! Put the focus on the perpetrators! The elite establishment! The class war aggressors!
rtdrury,
Mr. McKibben has given a solution. We know the problem like you pointed out.
"Purge the elite establishment from Washington!"
This is done by just what Mr. McKibben has been talking about in this article.
The only thing that keeps the elite in power or the people. Power only feeds off the people. Once people stop believing in the lies of the elite and turn away from them, then the powers that be vanishes into thin air. It only works when the masses of people come together. Like the author of this article said, spread the number 350 around the globe. Don't you see? it's only when people like you and I come together that the power shifts from the elite back to the people. Gandhi did it. He kicked the powerful British empire out of India without a single bloodshed. That was only achieved by the people coming together. Martin Luther King Jr. started a non-violent movement and it worked.
I thought the most important number in the world was 4:20?
or 77 (like 69, except you get 8 more)
Actually, I'm wth Manatee. I'm 50, have no kids, so the hell with the this planet and all the stupid humans on it. Hang on and enjoy the ride down!
Teaching humans not to consume excessively is like trying to teach bees to stop making honey, teach mosquitoes to stop sucking blood, or a dog to stop licking its balls.
for every person who cuts back their CO2 emmissions, 3 more will step forward to increase theirs...its human nature.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
or 77 (like 69, except you get 8 more)
I like that;>) Believe it or not I've never heard that before.
Rickster
A cautionary tale for God, who hopefully is taking notes on future engineering changes for planet Earth. A level playing field is best. Do not let a single species become pre-eminent, or the whole diverse, beautifully balanced thing goes down. I'm a big fan of macaws and squirrels, and I worry what will become of them when we have finished making the earth unlivable. I doubt we will be able, even by setting off all of our hell bombs, to erase life itself, and from some seraphic point of view it probably doesn't matter if it all has to start over again from microbes. Humans do have to go, however. We produced some great fiddlers and poets, but on the larger game boards of the United Nations and Nature itself, we are not team players. We won't die off (according to The World Without Us) until things are so toxic that even rats and cockroaches can't stand it any more. So I suppose it's adios to my squirrels and birds too, unless the authors of this incredible world have some kind of chemotherapy or surgical technique to terminate the human experiment without collateral damage.
Just listened to NPR 'All Things Considered' by accident. They were
celebrating the fact that the 'feds' lower the interest rates to 0 - 0.25 %.
It is those feds that need some meds.
Guess what that will do to the planet. Unchecked consumerism till
death parts us from this planet.
For me the economic 'crisis' was intended to soft boil all those people
that fight for the environment. With enough folks unemployed,
homeless and/or starving, considerations about Mother Nature
become obsolete. While some people don't seem to care at all,
most people start not to care about the environment when the fridge
is empty. Like the guys in Brazil. Cut down some more Rain Forest
when the one You just cleared doesn't feed You anymore.
This is a lose/lose situation. 'Game Over' as I like to say.
But then there have been miracles throughout the ages...
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
Paul Siemering
Bill, it's not about your number. The problem is Global Capitalism. Capital insists it must chew up more of the planet every year in order to produce more products which we must consume
As long as this is the economic order, the planet is doomed, because it is finite and cannot be consumed with no limit. We are very far past old environmentalism. It's revolution time.
Has any one here read the Global Warming Comments by John Coleman located here http://media.kusi.com/documents/Comments+on+Global+Warming02.pdf
I would be interested to know what other people think about his evidence.
Rickster
Hmm. He convinced me the "hockey stick" graph was bogus. Unfortunately that doesn't prove anything. Then John shows us a graph of 1000 years of temperatures but doesn't tell me where it came from, so I can't check whether it is any good.
He mentions that there was farming in Greenland. But that could be a local effect due to ocean currents, since the Gulf Stream makes a big difference there.
I don't know what to think.
Look again the information can be found here http://www.co2science.org/
The information was taken from bore hole ice samples. The data is backed up by sea floor sediment samples something their still just in the preliminary process of figuring out.
Rickster
That's a good-looking site. I don't see why Chinese or Russian scientists would have any bias. I couldn't find the original papers. If they correct and there was a period of world warmth greater than what we have now then that is very good news. It means we aren't doomed.
I throw up my hands and say that I can't tell how severe the problem is. Maybe all of these studies on http://www.co2science.org/exist but there are ten times as many studies that have the opposite conclusion. I dunno.
I'm left with the following reasoning: Suppose for the sake of argument that there is 1% of severe damage if no action is taken. I think it is worthwhile to spend 1% of world GDP on avoiding this possibility.
Another way to look at it is, if we wait until there is conclusive proof it may come too late. Why take such a chance? If we take some action and it turns out we didn't need it, it's no big deal. Play it safe, we can easily afford it.
I agree we need to severely limit our impact on our world. I also can't see why we can't. There's no reason why recyclability isn't considered in every product we design. I also support continued research on what actual effects our pollutants have on our environment.
I do get a kick out of some of the dooms days scenarios and fear mongering people get into though. Seems like that is the only way you can get any action out of people.
Rickster
Another TV weatherman trumpeting denialist views. What a surprise. He can join Anthony Watts and the Rapture people in their little echo chamber where they ignore the real world.
Seriously, don't you have a church meeting to go to or something? Go peddle your lies somewhere else.
Fighting the forces of rather dim lighting wherever they may be found!!
"Another TV weatherman trumpeting denialist views."
Them weatherman are pretty dam smart. Did you even look at the scientific evidence he presented? Evidence that can be researched right here on the net to see if he's talking truth or not. I haven't researched everything hes presented yet but the things I have supports his conclusion.
If your not going to read what he has to say you probably shouldn't even commit on it. makes you sound narrow between the eyes.
Rickster
manatee,
your very first post just about sums it up.
for those who think that the disappearance of arctic sea ice carries with it little consequence, keep fighting.
I have to admit, at age 50, that I have come to a similar view of life as manatee and some others.
I thought that the reason for the previous 4,000 years of injustice and wars was that people didn't get organized for peace because they didn't know how. I now realize that while some people wanted peace and worked for it, it was not enough. In part because of attitudes and compromises that prevent the majority of people willing to accept less than peace and justice. Like voting for Obama and giving him unconditional support in the hope that he would give them a crumb.
I am thankful for those individuals who sacrificed and toiled for peace, We may be the last generation that gets to reap the benefits.
That doesn't mean that I will change how I live my life or think that my views were not on target. But the idea that I can be part of a movement that can effect global change is growing more and more distant. I won't be silent, and will encourage people to speak to the truth, but the idea that there will be a groundswell of people who will unite for peace and justice is growing dimmer and dimmer each passing year.
We have had three 'democratic' presidential candidates in the last 8 years, and not one of them could speak to the root causes of the injustice. And yet they got the 'support' of the democrats and many of the 'progressives.'
I'm sorry that under my watch the same wars and injustices continued unabated. The status quo has not changed, and is more entrenched with the democrats in power (since they were perceived as the 'opposition party'.
"There is no peace without justice, and no justice if it is based on lies." AG
www.NotOoneMore.US
The Vikings settled Greenland and established successful farms during the Medieval Warm period. From what I've been able to discover so far the temperatures were actually quite a bit higher world wide than they are now. The vikings had to leave Greenland when the little Ice age came along. Each of these periods seems to have happened quire rapidly and lasted a long while. There seems to be evidence that this has happened every so often for a long long time back.
I was a firm believer in global warming but I always try to have an open mind and I'm starting to wonder. Remember the ozone hole worry.
Rickster
The ozone hole has evidently been effectively dealt with by the ban on chlorofluorocarbons. I think the ozone holes are lessening now, and will return to previous levels in 50 to 70 years. Global warming has not even begun to be effectively slowed down.
The chlorofluorocarbons you speak of are still being produced and sold around the world. I know you can still get them in the states. The new stuff is totally incompatible with the old equipment and I have a friend that is an air conditioning and refrigeration mechanic.
Plus we have more data that shows the ozone hole has been there changing in size for thousands of years and probably far longer.
Rickster
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Ftar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/070.htm
seems to imply that the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were local to Europe.
Greenland is in Europe? How about it seems to have mainly affected the northern hemisphere.
Rickster
Right. A northward shift of the Gulf Stream would warm both Europe and southern Greenland.
I didn't know it could shift any farther north.
Rickster
This has nothing to do with how little of how much consequence we feel - it has to do with what we choose to do with the little time that may be remaining.
Since I have yet to be able to see all the intricacies of what the future may hold, I choose not to give up.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Has any one here read the Global Warming Comments by John Coleman located here http://media.kusi.com/documents/Comments+on+Global+Warming02.pdf
I would be interested to know what other people think about his evidence.
Rickster
Honestly, rickster, I didn't read Coleman's piece. Instead, I Googled him. All I can do is judge him by the friends he keeps (those who choose to publish him) and then take his word accordingly.
I don't think much of Coleman's friends.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Well I don't know his friends so I couldn't say. I read his piece and goggled the data and facts he published. Seems pretty convincing to me. The science he quotes seems more valid than the global warming data seems.
His report does start off on the wrong track though. At first I was even turned off by it. The deeper I read though the more sense he made. I haven't seen yet that kind of sense in the pro global warming camp.
I'm back to being undecided though. I was until recently a firm believer in global warming. Based on historical records that can be tracked back thousands of years through tree ring and ice core samples etc., I'm beginning to have my doubts.
Rickster
There will always be people who deny overwhelming evidence. I would hazard a guess that there are still a few people who believe the earth is flat, despite some fairly overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
This from the Science web site (magazine?). Please pay attention to the detractors of the overwhelming evidence about global warming:
"Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
"The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities..."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Actually I think you would be better off going straight to the source so here it is. http://www.ipcc.ch/ I get the feeling their not absolutely sure about their conclusions.
Can you blame them for spinning bad news about their research though. It's pretty hard to get grants to support it. Especially in this day and age. I support continued research at all levels. I won't be surprised in twenty years if all the early conclusions are way off.
I support green energy just because it's the best way to go.
Rickster
From the IPCC summary:
"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is
now evident from observations of increases in global
average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting
of snow and ice and rising global average sea level
(Figure SPM.1). {1.1}
Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among
the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global
surface temperature (since 1850). The 100-year linear trend
(1906-2005) of 0.74 [0.56 to 0.92]°C1 is larger than the corresponding
trend of 0.6 [0.4 to 0.8]°C (1901-2000) given in
the Third Assessment Report (TAR) (Figure SPM.1). The temperature
increase is widespread over the globe and is greater
at higher northern latitudes. Land regions have warmed faster
than the oceans (Figures SPM.2, SPM.4). {1.1, 1.2}
Rising sea level is consistent with warming (Figure
SPM.1). Global average sea level has risen since 1961 at an
average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm/yr and since 1993 at 3.1
[2.4 to 3.8] mm/yr, with contributions from thermal expansion,
melting glaciers and ice caps, and the polar ice sheets.
Whether the faster rate for 1993 to 2003 reflects decadal variation
or an increase in the longer-term trend is unclear. {1.1}
Observed decreases in snow and ice extent are also consistent
with warming (Figure SPM.1). Satellite data since 1978
show that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by
2.7 [2.1 to 3.3]% per decade, with larger decreases in summer
of 7.4 [5.0 to 9.8]% per decade. Mountain glaciers and snow
cover on average have declined in both hemispheres. {1.1}"
This is inconclusive to only those who really want it to be.
I'm sure you have many good ideas, but as far as this subject goes, I'm going to ignore you.
"but as far as this subject goes, I'm going to ignore you."
That's fine ignore me. I've only just scratched the surface of this and the complete report. not to mention my continuing study of all side of the equation. I don't doubt global warming is taking place just like it has many times in the past. A hundred years from now we could very well be in a period of global cooling.
There's plenty of evidence that is normal. Back in the 30-40's the ice caps melted off quite a bit then reformed again.
Needless to say there is still a lot of uncertainly among the scientist who are developing the models of our environment as to the accuracy of their long term forecast.
Rickster
NotesfromtheEdge
I couldn't help but to wonder about the effect of militarism and its use of fossil fuels, and the manufacture of weapons. I agree with one of the writers here, that unless we as a species, and especially the USA, get a handle on this 'killing game' of militarism, then 350 will not matter. Unless the next President of the Corporation really gets it, that the time to "turn swords into plowshares" is imminently upon the western world, and the MIC, we are slated for extinction as a species and we will be taking the planet down with us.
We will be committed to our own extinction once we are unable to return from the 'abyss'. The planet will decide for us. And it looks like we're there. If we are close enough to determine a number {that is already past the tipping point}, and that others of our species sense and know that our extinction is near, then we're there.
The methane that is bubbling up from the once frozen sea floor of the Arctic off of Siberia, is one of the biggest indicators. It is like the 'indicator species', in geological terms. The things we need to do NOW are somehow not likely to happen if the past is any kind of a barometer.
For example: Instead of freeing the world of nuclear weapons, they have proliferated, to the tune of 12,000 nuclear warheads in the USA alone, 2,000 of them on hair trigger alert. And that's not to mention the smaller nukes already on the assembly line, ie. depleted uranium shells, and then, there's nuclear cluster bombs, etc.etc. Just the energy it takes to maintain these nukes is a phenomena. Imagine what could be done if we literally shifted our waste of energy from the militarization of the planet to enacting practices of sustainable living. Then we might have a chance as a species.
Otherwise, we will not just be a 'failed state' but a failed species. And our epithet will read: 'Here lies a Failed Species, they were not able to adapt to life on Earth'. Or, 'Like the Dinosaurs, the Homo Sapiens outlived their usefulness as a species and became obsolete'. Or, 'They were a violent species and took the planet down with them'. The only problem is there may not be a Homo Sapien Sapien left to write it.
NotesfromtheEdge
I couldn't help but to wonder about the effect of militarism and its use of fossil fuels, and the manufacture of weapons. I agree with one of the writers here, that unless we as a species, and especially the USA, get a handle on this 'killing game' of militarism, then 350 will not matter. Unless the next President of the Corporation, Mr.Obama, really gets it, that the time to "turn swords into plowshares" is imminently upon the western world, and the MIC, we are slated for extinction as a species and we will be taking the planet down with us.
We will be committed to our own extinction once we are unable to return from the 'abyss'. The planet will decide for us. And it looks like we're there. If we are close enough to determine a number {that is already past the tipping point}, and that others of our species sense and know that our extinction is near, then we're there.
The methane that is bubbling up from the once frozen sea floor of the Arctic off of Siberia, is one of the biggest indicators. It is like the 'indicator species', in geological terms. The things we need to do NOW are somehow not likely to happen if the past is any kind of a barometer.
For example: Instead of freeing the world of nuclear weapons, they have proliferated, to the tune of 12,000 nuclear warheads in the USA alone, 2,000 of them on hair trigger alert. And that's not to mention the smaller nukes already on the assembly line, ie. depleted uranium shells, and then, there's nuclear cluster bombs, etc.etc. Just the energy it takes to maintain these nukes is a phenomena. Imagine what could be done if we literally shifted our waste of energy from the militarization of the planet to enacting practices of sustainable living. Then we might have a chance as a species. Otherwise, we will not just be a 'failed state' but a failed species. And our epithet will read: 'Here lies a Failed Species, they were not able to adapt to life on Earth'.
If the no. 350 is for real then were fucked. Let's face facts here folks the people with the $$ and the power don't care what happens to 99% of us. They fig. worse case they can move somewhere still nice with their private army to protect them. Don't count on the pols doing much , except adding more hot air to the atmosphere and pushing that number even higher.
Truly, we are f*cked. Look at what just didn't happen in Poland. Look at the history of the environmental movement versus the history of capitalism (let alone communism, which was environmentally worse). Granted the future is uncertain, but I'm pretty damned certain as I can be that it won't be many more years before the ocean tides push tides of 100's of millions of people inland. Given human lack of compassion, it will become ugly. But take comfort that the Earth will either shake off a few billion of us like a dog shaking water off its coat and restore a balance similar to what we know, or the whole planet will lurch into a new era, maybe with some of us, maybe with none. No big deal. Life itself will go on. Try to have a good time!
Fast Eddie in Seattle
so, if we can't stop the end, how to live among fellow humans without beginning to view all others as morons too stupid to know they're suicidal? do we simply to sue each other for planet-threatening behaviors? do we make the end of our species a cause for celebration, like drinking a toast on the sinking Titanic?
I'd go for a new paradigm: as long as we're going down, let's do it with mating, marijuana and music...I mean, who cares, really? especially since the other option appears to be being tasered by Blackwater punks on the way to the gulag or guillotine...
What is this, the Surrender wing of the progressive movement?
I've never heard such self-indulgent pap since...well, since a few days ago here on CD. Hell, you don't even have the balls to call fucking, fucking!
BTW, the Hippies tried sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Now they're running the show. Great job, huh?
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
"BTW, the Hippies tried sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Now they're running the show. Great job, huh?"
I've heard that before and let me tell you the hippies aren't running the show. There still laid back and laughing at the fools.
Rickster
ah, you prefer the word fuck...well, there it is...Dick Cheney's a Hippy? Whose doctrines will you follow until the end, and why?
The doctrine of hope. That gives me the courage to try alternatives in the belief that I don't know it all.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
For what it's worth, I'm all for the fucking, pot and music approach. And don't worry about those who keep calling on us slackers to "fight the good fight." It's very hard for them to give up the illusion of control!
Fast Eddie in Seattle
Don't want to smoke pot without food, though, gotta have something for the munchies. :D
Slackers? Nah. Cowards.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Cowards? You know nothing of me. Why don't you just go pick a fight in a bar. Seems like what you'd be best suited for. Name calling! How old are you?
Fast Eddie in Seattle
'For what it's worth, I'm all for the fucking, pot and music approach. And don't worry about those who keep calling on us slackers to "fight the good fight."'
But I do know something of you. Your words, right?
I just think that people who choose to slack off rather than try to look for solutions are cowards. Not fighting, just opining.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
You now know a very little about me--I'm sarcastic and cynical and like to push buttons of people like you. As with "manatee" below, who you chastised until you found out he/she's a committed activist who simply burned out, I've spent nearly 30 years as a biologist, in ecological and human health research, environmental consulting, and, in my own time, reading philosophy for the big picture. My entire career has been spent trying to slow the juggernaut of the greed of humans. I've concluded it can't be done.
To quote my soulmate, Henry Miller, "Nothing can be changed without a change of heart, and who can change the hearts of men?"
Fast Eddie in Seattle
"I'm sarcastic and cynical and like to push buttons of people like you."
Three more reasons for me not to like you.
Cynicism, like slacking, is cowardice. It's the easy way out.
See you in the bar, Eddie.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
But Ted!! I really, really want you to like me!!! You're so smart and so determined and, golly, just like Sarah Palin, you just don't say "quit." You just go on your righteous way, keep on preachin', and, maybe, someone some day will even give a shit about your thoughts. You might also check out some bipolar meds...
Fast Eddie in Seattle
"You might also check out some bipolar meds..."
Will you share?
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
I have none, sorry. But I must say, I just love the irony of your Pope quote juxtaposed against your bellicosity. It's like standing up and yelling, "Peace, you fuckers!" I'm inspired to change my tag line!
Anyway, we're wasting an evening here, and I'm distracting you from passing judgment on others.
Peace would be nice!
"To be human in 2008 is to rise in defense of the planet we have known and the civilization it has spawned."
Hmm, sorry, I'm not moved, nor worried.
First, in the end, the planet will take care of itself. We as a species, are simply too fatally flawed by our own instincts (greed to own and conquer) to do anything else but what we're doing. The strong and powerful of our species have risen to the top. I short, we are incapable politically of changing (back) the dynamics of an entire planet.
Second, I'm not so sure I really want to "defend" the civilization that has taken us to where we are today. If quite fine with seeing our own extinction.
Of course I personally haven't spawned any of my own little ankle-biters that would contribute to all of this mess, so, I really just don't care.
Mother Nature will deal with it.
"Of course I personally haven't spawned any of my own little ankle-biters that would contribute to all of this mess, so, I really just don't care."
Thank God for small favors.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
No less an authority then Joe Romm, climateprogress.org, believes mobilizing for 450 ppm is almost too much to expect from humanity. If 350 is the point of no return, we are already at 385, and turning everything off will just let the dust settle and reduce global dimming. Turning everything off now will still result in CO2 higher than 350 ppm for decades.
If 350 was the point of no return, its over. We'll be at 400 in 6 years.
If the author really cared to solve "global warming", he'd write about hemp and grass-fed meat and diary being more important than ever. Otherwise, this is just another Big Government propaganda article supported by Big Oil !
I'm for introducing hemp into the mainstream. They will have to exclude it from the drug wars first, though, which would be a good thing. It could definitely be part of the answer.
No, if he really cared he'd write about veganism! No, I mean, he'd write about Buddhism! No, I mean, he'd write about feminism! No...
Christ on a pony...
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Isn't the era of criticising "Big Government" about over?
The challenges we face will require that we all work together as nations and the nations together as a planet.
If this means "Big Government" and even the draded "One World Government", I'm all for it, as long as it is egalitarian and democratic.
The era of Ayn Rand/Reaganist cowboy individualism and US unilateralist cowboy imperialism must end.
---USAn---
Despite the fact that this piece is written well and extensive, something
seems to slip the American mind perpetually.
Does anybody point at the waste the global military machine produces?
Have You ever heard of a tank with improved fuel efficiency? What about
those Hummers? They are a blasphemy as a civil vehicle, as a military
vehicle they are not getting half of the MPG, because of the armor.
Global militarism is the biggest polluter since we left the caves. Forget
about those coal plants and civil vehicles. It is the military that has brought
the planet to the condition it is in right now. The funds available to ever
create more deadly weapons dwarf the funds available to save the planet.
'The Most Important Number On Earth' is an oxymoron. No number is ever
important. Unless You talk to me about the required oxygen content in the
atmosphere that enables us to breath. Yet, what would it be good for to know
what You need to survive, if You can't get it?
If the nations on this planets would be cars, the US would be the Hummer,
whereas most others would be compact cars.
'Hummer - It Can't Get Any Dumber!'©
Like other commenters here I agree. It is extremely unlikely that there will be
change on behalf of human acting. Watch now how environmental
considerations are dumped for the sake of employment or the return to
'economic growth' - business as usual.
Larger climatic processes have been kicked off, no man can stop what the
planet has already initiated. Removal of a toxic species from its surface.
Somebody mentioned the release of methane in both former 'perma frost'
areas as the Russian Tundra (Larger than the US) and from the warming
ocean floors. The number was 20 Million tons. That is wishful thinking or
more so a grave misinformation. The amount of Methane contained in the
Arctic sea bed is estimated at around 50 Billion metric tons. Plus the Methane
in the Tundra with more than 60 Billion metric tons. Last year an estimated
4 Million metric tons went atmospheric.
http://tinyurl.com/methane-time-bomb
Europeans are way better informed than the sheeples of the US with their
Main-Stream-Misinformation. In Germany they showed recently how
Siberians make use of the Methane release. They dig a foot deep with
a spade and ignite the Methane. When the fire gets smaller, they just hit
the soil next to it with the spade and more Methane comes up to get Your
fire going. Practically the whole Tundra provides this 'phenomenon' and
Russia has invited the world to come and extract the Methane before it
gets atmospheric. A hopeless attempt to prevent the inevitable.
As long as human mankind allows for militarism and respectively wars, its
fate is sealed and deserved.
For the ones who are interested, Eckhart Tolle speaks and writes about
'The Power Of Now'. In the Now there is no worry about anything, even
not about the unfolding extinction of human mankind.
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
"In Germany they showed recently how Siberians make use of the Methane release. They dig a foot deep with a spade and ignite the Methane. When the fire gets smaller, they just hit the soil next to it with the spade and more Methane comes up to get Your fire going. Practically the whole Tundra provides this 'phenomenon' and Russia has invited the world to come and extract the Methane before it gets atmospheric. A hopeless attempt to prevent the inevitable."
Methane is a much more efficient greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide. I'd read that "if" the tundra thaws out that many millions (or billions) of tons of methane would be released into the atmosphere. And now you tell us about digging a hole and lighting the methane gas. It looks like the permafrost is well on its way to thawing. Seems to me its too late no matter how we look at it or what we do.
-- EKATON --
Global Warming....The latest faith based religion substitute for secularists.
I really hope you enjoy the rapture!
Fast Eddie in Seattle
Ahem. Your data please?
No data needed in a libertarian nirvana.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Analysis of data is key in seeing trends before they utterly overwhelm us. The problems are both those who will not act until overwhelmed and failure to make the message of scientific findings real to the general public.
Agreed.
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
I believe that the ultra-elites, those who support politicians like Bush and Cheney, find the policies that lead to global warming to be a win-win (exteme profits now and opportunities later). As Naomi Klein explains in "The Shock Doctrine," catastrophe can create new opportunities for implementing extreme policies that would otherwise be beyond the pale. The pressure to limit energy use will help reduce resistance to painful measures to encourage the masses to live simpler, less wasteful lives, possibly including a number of energy use taxes. Of course the ultra-elites, who through the past few years have accumulated vast fortunes, will be completely unaffected by such taxes and will be able to continue their wasteful and extravagant lives, which the sophists in their employ will no doubt justify as something that has been earned and that does not, given the small number of elites, pose a threat to the future of the planet.
Through the continued use of large amounts of energy, while the masses are forced to live on far less, the elites will be able to increase their fortunes and their advantages, more and more so over time. And the possibility of not only a two-tiered society but of a two-species society will arise, with elites using genetic engineering to create a superior progeny to even more fully dominate the planet, making the lower-tiered humans, from the perspective of the upper tier, inferior, useless, and expendable (elimination of the surplus billions made all the easier by convincing the masses that their fellow lower-tier humans just waste resources and harm the planet by their continued existence).
I would add that I in no way oppose energy taxes or other measures to protect the environment. I just believe that as long as some individuals have millions of times the wealth, power, and influence of other individuals, there really is no pathway to a quality future for the vast majority. As long as there are ultra-elites, there will continue to be innumerable attempts, some subtle and some not so subtle, by the ultra-elites to play non-elites for suckers with regard to environmental issues as well as virtually all other issues, and such attempts will often be successful.
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: Welcome, or should I say, "Greetings, fellow Atlantean." Knowingly or not you are reproducing through your intuition or imagination what purportedly HAS already occured in the sunken continent of Atlantis. Edgar Cayce spoke about this, and said that many of the geneticists from that time period WERE reincarnating in America, taking the technology (part of soul memory) with them. He said this in the l950's... well before the world of bio-tech held the clout it now does.
Did you catch an article published some time ago based on a patented genetic company getting a monopoly on the genes of the Icelandic people as most are blond/blue eyed? The article was entitled, "Blonde ambition," and represented the genetic equivalent of Hitler's preference for the Aryan race and its ostensible characteristics. What fun...
I did not see that article. I do think, however, that Hitler ruined the appeal of the future utopia imagined by the aryan obsessed eugenicists. But the eugenicists who wish to use genetic engineering to fulfill their dreams are still out there, even though the great majority of us see that as a nightmare.
Yup.
There is absolutely no way to lower a country's standard of living while exempting an elite. The wealth distribution has to be flattened considerably.
I hope you are wrong about the passivity of the masses, though. I'd like to think that it would be in the interests of the elite to realize that the sacrifice has to be shared.
"I hope you are wrong about the passivity of the masses, though. I'd like to think that it would be in the interests of the elite to realize that the sacrifice has to be shared."
But we are part of the masses. Are you including yourself in the passive role along with the rest of the masses?
Dinosaurs died because they were too stupid to adapt to sudden change. We have a choice here. We may not succeed, but does that mean we must die stupid?
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
What if the sun is warming? I'm not disputing global warming at all. On the contrary, I'm certain it is real. And I believe the carbon we are spewing into the atmosphere is accelerating it. But, what if the sun is warming?
-- EKATON --
Very precise solar luminosity measurements have been taken by spacecraft like SOHO for a couple decades, and by less precise earth based measurements before that. There has been no significant change in solar output.
The sun IS gradually increasing it's output very slowly over geologically long time periods - for example, the sun is about 7% stronger than it was 500 million years ago. This is enough change that the earth should have been either an iceball in the geologic past, or uninhabitably hot today. The apparent ability for the earth biological/atmospheric/oceanic system to adjust itself to keep the earth clement for live over these long time periods was the subject of Lovelock's Gaia Hypotheses.
But there will be a point where the sun's output becomes too great for the Gaia systems to adjust, and at that point, life relatively brief existence on earth will die out as it becomes intolerably hot. Barring humans really screwing Gaia up, that is believed to still be about 600-800 MY in the future for complex life forms. So we are at about the mid-point for life on earth.
---USAn---
"There has been no significant change in solar output."
If your talking about the average solar output your right. We're at the back end of a solar flare period and the solar output was well over the average during that time.
Rickster
With the exception of the unusual event called the Maunder Minimum, when the sun remained sunspot free for 6 dacades from 1650 to 1710, there is no evidence that the normal 11 year solar cycle affects global climate compared to more salient factors.
---USAn---
The unusual event called the Maunder Minimum just happens to coincide with the event called the little ice age. The Medieval Optimum Just so happens to be a time period when the solar maximum was at a very high level. Thats was just before the little ice age and the vikings were able to established farms in Greenland at that time. There is also evidence they spent time year round around the Arctic circle during this period.
You haven't looked at the data have you? If you had, you would have noticed how neatly the solar flare time line coincide with temperature variations over the last thousand years.
Rickster
The amount of sun light reaching the Earth is actually diminishing because of pollution.
Check out "Dimming the Sun" a NOVA pbs documentary for more info.
You're right! I saw that documentary, just slipped my 59-year-old mind. Thanks for the reminder.
-- EKATON --
If nature is God, religion has seriously misinterpreted him.
Bill missed the most important one:
(4) Kill off half the human population or reduce it humanely with contraceptives.