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August 16, 2005
This will be BIG News fifty years from now
WARMING HITS TIPPING POINT says the Guardian last Thursday.
A vast portion of Siberia, "an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age":
The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.
Because of the feedback effect and the resulting release of methane gases, estimates of temperature rises over the next century will probably be revised upward as much as 25% just based on this single finding.
"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia."This is a big deal because you can't put the permafrost back once it's gone. The causal effect is human activity and it will ramp up temperatures even more than our emissions are doing."
Various climate scientists have been warning that something like this was around the corner. But the oil-drunk Busheviks, soaked in flatulent denial, are so far behind on the climate crisis that the public is also several steps from understanding the nature and dimension of the problem, and especially what must be done.
The argument about how aggressively to curb greenhouse gases that has absorbed everyone now becomes an argument primarily about responsibility to the somewhat distant future. Passing a tipping point in Siberia means that nothing anyone does now, not even a 95% reduction in carbon dioxide, is going to stop the melting.
The things that are going to have to be done first to deal with the inevitable aren't even being discussed, because the administration and its supporters deny it is happening.
Another danger is the public failing to understand that cutting emissions won't benefit them (except in terms of healthier air and water, of course) because it probably won't affect the climate for a very long time, and so they would simply refuse to switch to clean, renewable and sustainable energy -- thus condemning the future to even greater horrors, such as an end to the earth's ability to sustain many of the life forms that characterize the planet.
Or, as some people say, the earth as we have known it since the dinosaurs.
This news sheds a different light on the complaining about the price of gasoline, doesn't it?
Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at August 16, 2005 12:15 AM | Permalink
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Comments
The Clear Skies and Healthy Forests Acts didn't do the trick, eh? PDiddie, I am afraid to ask, but I will ask anyway: What do you see as "the things that are going to have to be done first to deal with the inevitable"?
Posted by: Marguerite Reed at August 15, 2005 11:21 PM
Marguerite, it's travel day for us so I'm sorry you've been waiting for an answer so long.
Let me start by saying that getting a few prominent Republicans to ackowledge the problem would be a nice place to start.
I'll ge back with more later.
Posted by: PDiddie at August 16, 2005 01:18 PM
Funny that second term Presidents typically worry about their legacy... Future generations may view Bush as the symbol of the burned out world they inhabit. Hope not, but if so, it's probably fair to point out that it won't be because this Administration was solely responsible -- clearly we ALL bear some of the responsibility -- but rather because they'll be remembered as the last, greatest, and most active resistance to solving the problem, and therefore the most pathetic.
Posted by: Mike Chappell at August 16, 2005 04:20 PM
This report by reputable scientists is a warning (should one still be needed) that we have to change our way of living, and do so soon.
Certainly the use of automobiles must be minimized and gradually phased out, replaced by public transportation. Gargantuan air conditioning systems in massive sealed buildings must be replaced by naturally ventilated homes and offices. Every step must be taken NOW to keep carbon dioxide emissions to a minimum.
Even with these two radical suggestions, it may still be too late, as the article points out. As the Second Law of Thermodynamics says, don't mess with me.
Everybody remember the hole in the ozone layer? About 20 years ago they stopped putting chlorofluorocarbons in aerosol cans so it wouldn't get any bigger, remember that? But they also said that the CFCs already in the atmosphere wouldn't dissipate entirely, or even do all the damage they're capable of for another hundred years?
Remember that? That's when I knew we had no idea what we were doing and that we'd probably already screwed things up beyond our means to fix it, because even the best minds don't understand well enough what's happening. A few years after that, the air conditioning compressor went out in my old Chevy and to repair it they were going to have to release all the freon. I said no thanks and drove it awhile longer. I was fortunate enough to be able to replace the car when I got too uncomfortable to drive it without A/C, but I feel certain that whoever next owned it probably didn't share my concern for the atmosphere.
And therein lies the quandary: what are we willing to sacrifice today in order to stave off what appears to be inevitable? Not much, from the looks of things.
(Self-centered sidebar: And hell, I don't have any children, so why do I care anyway? Let Generation Y all freeze in the dark, the nasty little I-pod'n, GTA playin', baggy-pantsed slackers...)
I've gone all alarmist about this before.
Of course it's not all one person's fault, but we have a leader who doesn't have the slightest grasp of the dangers we face because he is so absorbed in riding his bicycle, raising money for his political lickspittles, and teaching the Muslims a lesson. When the deluge comes, just like the tsunami last Christmas, it won't distinguish between Christians and Muslims or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists.
Perhaps the ruling party will grow some concern when their yachts finally get too expensive to operate (this apparently isn't close to happening yet), or their 3,000-mile Caesar salads aren't showing up on their plates, or they're having to wade through waist-deep water to get out of the New York Stock Exchange.
Then again, perhaps this is the reason they're grabbing all they can while they can, because they know all this too and they really don't give a shit.
Sorry about the buzzkill...
Posted by: PDiddie at August 17, 2005 04:23 AM