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Tar Sands a Turning Point to Save Life?
Historic Action to Stop Pipeline That May Push Climate Crisis Beyond Human Control
After the ice is gone, would Earth proceed to the Venus syndrome, a runaway greenhouse effect that would destroy all life on the planet, perhaps permanently? .... I’ve come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty." Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over."
- Pre-eminent climate scientist Dr. James Hansen
Some will react with skepticism to the sweeping tone of this title. There are so many worthy causes to pursue, and countless good people engaged in wonderful efforts to make this a better world. Yet all efforts to move humanity in a positive direction depend upon one thing -- a planet that can continue to support life. This is literally the "common ground" that binds together all activists for progressive social change. If we lose that battle, all hope for a transformed world becomes meaningless and of course impossible to manifest.
There is precedent for the recognition of such a "common denominator" moment. During the 1980s, there was the transcendent, over-arching danger presented to all humanity by the nuclear arms race and threat of nuclear war. Huge demonstrations rocked many of the world's capital cities. The largest protest in U.S. history up until that time brought nearly a million people to the United Nations in New York City in 1982.
We now stand perilously close to a climate "tipping point" where tremendous natural forces will be set in motion which humanity will be powerless to stop. Earlier this year, 17 Nobel Prize winning scientists issued this joint statement:
"Science makes clear that we are transgressing planetary boundaries that have kept civilization safe for the past 10,000 years. ...We can no longer exclude the possibility that our collective actions will trigger tipping points, risking abrupt and irreversible consequences for human communities and ecological systems. We cannot continue on our current path. The time for procrastination is over. We cannot afford the luxury of denial. " -- Stockholm Memorandum
A group of climate scientists recently released an open letter to President Obama urging that he block the tar sands oil pipeline. Excerpt:
"When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the Earth’s climate system and to its oceans. Now that we do know, it’s imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy—and that we leave the tar sands in the ground."
One of the signers - Dr. James Hansen - is described by Al Gore: "When the history of the climate crisis is written, Hansen will be seen as the scientist with the most powerful and consistent voice calling for intelligent action to preserve our planet's environment." Hansen warned the world 25 years ago, and has acted as the conscience of the scientific community - never hesitating to speak the truth no matter how daunting. He is now saying we are at the turning point on whether citizen activism will hold back the catastrophe.
Just when all effort must be made to break our society's addiction to fossil fuels, oil corporations are pushing for a massive step in the wrong direction. They are developing a new source of oil in Canada via a highly destructive process, and wish to export it to the U.S. through a pipeline. Their goal is to move this oil on such a vast scale as to become the new "Saudi Arabia".
The effort to pass Congressional legislation aimed at reining in carbon emissions has been completely paralyzed by the big money of the fossil fuel lobby. All legal avenues have been exhausted. Under such circumstances, Hansen and others are saying we must now turn to the honorable and principled moral power of nonviolent civil disobedience.
At the very same time that the nation will be dedicating a new memorial to honor the most well known advocate of nonviolence in American history -- Martin Luther King -- people of conscience will be gathering outside the White House to take a stand against tar sands oil madness. Gandhi said: "Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless or, which is the same thing, corrupt.... Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of humankind." A series of nonviolent actions will be taking place from Aug. 20 to Sept. 3. A special day for the religious community is set for Aug.29.
As the pipeline crosses an international boundary, authority to proceed must be issued by the president. With these actions directed toward Obama, there is a real chance to break through the Congressional quagmire. He has stated his belief in the reality of the climate crisis and his commitment to take serious action. Now is the time to test his sincerity. Obama has also said that it is the "job of the people" to hold him accountable. For this reason, there is a need for as many people as possible to take part in these actions.
Collectively, these actions are likely to become the largest civil disobedience on climate in U.S. history. Already, nearly 2000 people have signed up. This is a "line in the sand" -- the tar sands! Please spread the word. One easy way is to forward these brief videos of endorsements by actor Mark Ruffalo and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Feel free to forward this invitation or simply the following action site (which provides more information on particulars and how to sign up): http://www.tarsandsaction.org
Additional Resources:
Website for more background on the issue: http://www.dirtyoilsands.org
Other video resources shed further light:
Nobel Prize scientist Andrew Weaver on climate impact of burning tar sands oil: http://youtu.be/25x_sSvZUIo
Health impact of tar sands megaproject: http://youtu.be/xenYLY5lU58
Dr. Hansen on danger of runaway greenhouse effect: http://youtu.be/ACHLayfA6_4
An award-winning film uses stunning aerial photography to explain climate disruption and show the magnificence of what will be lost if we fail to prevent catastrophe:
"HOME": [2 minute trailer] : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74nAerEONE
[Free full film] : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
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9 Comments so far
Show AllSpeaking of Barack Obama, Mr Houser says, "Now is the time to test his sincerity". It's a novel idea, and maybe one whose time has come. After all, Mr Obama's sincerity has not heretofore been tested. It's still in the box it came in, and the box can not be found.
I had heard Dr. Hansens "game over" remark quoted - but I didn't know that it was referring to fears of venusification - basically a centuries-long - but unstoppable Doomsday. Are climate scientists really considering evidence of such a possibility - even if small? If so, why are they so quiet about it - afraid of politicians calling them "alarmist"?
I recall that before starting up Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven, the physicists were required to consider and exclude any possible remote way that these experiments could produce a world or universe-ending event - an earth-absorbing black hole or strangelet, or a universe-ending collapse of the quantum false vacuum. And, in the science-fiction-esque report of their investigation these scientists did manage to exclude these possibilities to their (but not everyone's) satisfaction.
But with regard to AGW, how many climate scientists believe that there is a small chance of AGW-induced planet-sterilizing venusification? Considering such a doomsday scenario, how remote should such probability be to be considered acceptable?
Hansen's quote regarding the Venus Syndrome is from his book "Storms Of My Grandchildren" - published a couple of years ago. The book is well worth reading, and it has a whole chapter called "The Venus Syndrome."
I was surprised to hear Hansen speaking so directly to this possibility. The risk Hansen outlines is that methane has been accumulating for so long now that the total worldwide dose, were it to be released, would be greater than that of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (the PETM). Also, our sun is a little hotter now than it was 55 mya. The conjecture that the discharge of a huge store of methane clathrates could trigger a runaway greenhouse is sometimes called the "Clathrate Gun Hypothesis."
You don't have to be a biologist to understand that Venusification would mean the end of all life, with the possible exception of thermophiles. What eventually happens is that the hydrogen atoms become so energized they escape the atmosphere. This is how a planet dies, and it will happen someday to our Earth. It's only a question of when.
The only other scientist I've heard to openly speculate about the Venus Syndrome is James Lovelock (who is not a climatologist). My impression is that the consensus of climate scientists does not regard the Venus Syndrome as a serious concern (see, for instance, Gavin Schmidt and friends over at realclimate.org). Personally, I'm not convinced that Hansen and Lovelock are that far off the reservation. They are probably the two most impressive minds engaged with this problem, after all.
"My impression is that the consensus of climate scientists does not regard the Venus Syndrome as a serious concern"
But is doesn't have to be a "serious" concern - any concern at all of human-caused doomsday is "serious"!
And I think the model even isn't the PE thermal maximum, it is the P-Tr mass extinction event, which was also likely caused by a runaway greenhouse and ocean acidification event.
The view from very deep planetary history, which Lovelock intuited in the formulation of the Gaia hypothesis, is that a sun like ours gradually gets warmer - while Earth systems somehow modulate increasing solar energy to maintain temperatures conducive to life. From time to time, planetary crises such as India crashing into Asia have disturbed this equilibrium and brought on mega-warming or freezing, along with the great extinction events which delineate geological eras.
Our current collective experiment with CO2 emissions in the Anthropocene era tests how much "forcing" is required to initiate another wobble into disequilibrium. Paleoclimatic studies (by Hansen and many others) tend to indicate surprising fragility in Earth's temperature balancing act. Once a serious imbalance is initiated, it's essentially impossible to predict how severe the oscillations will be. The last time this happened, the continents were in different locations - and continental topography is a major climatic component.
The scientific consensus I allude to is well-represented by Archer in this paper from 2007:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2007.hydrate_rev.pdf
Archer views the runaway greenhouse as unlikely based on his analysis of how the Earth has responded to gradual methane releases in past crises. I'm not well-versed enough to mount a serious critique of Archer's work, but the unprecedentedly rapid pace of current CO2 emissions makes it hard for me to share Archer's optimism.
Tar sands exploitation leaves the area where oil is extracted closest to hell vision as any human technology on Earth. It is just horrible and should not be allowed ANYWHERE on the planet. However, the American dependence on oil will provide the markets for that tar sand oil and therefore, oil companies will do EVERYTHING in their power to keep that oil flowing, including creating hell on Earth, as they did with BP spill and other spills around the globe.
Since politicians (all over the world) are bought by the large moneyed interests (such as energy conglomerates), they will continue to cater to their interests regardless on the consequences for eath and people. The only solution is to make oil and coal not needed and their masters, multinational corporations irrelevant, by collecting solar (thermal and photovoltaic) energy and rain water at the locations where we use it. It is doable (I have been doing it for 2 years) but requires living with thinking.
The powers-that-be in the oil business are chomping at the bit for this one-they've got millions of dollars awaiting them if/when they can get this gunk into a pipeline, down the chute to Texas, refine it, and then sell it to the highest bidder, wherever they are in the world. Dr. James Hansen is a true hero to real science and has been a rational but passionate, steady voice for stabilizing the climate and on the topic of Global Warming since way before it became a so-called household topic. I hope and pray enough voices will make themselves heard to avert this mega-disaster from unfolding. Canada is beginning to look like something out of a horror movie. Hell on Earth indeed...
Hansen's gone over the top with the Venus syndrome scare tactic. He's not a biologist and doesn't appreciate the resilience of life as does James Lovelock. Earth could well become mostly or entirely uninhabitable for mammals but many lifeforms would remain to repopulate the planet with new species and adjust the environment to its long term mean.
Did Venus ever get repopulated?