We've got a bigger problem here than how to get along with each other, as important as that may be, and that's how to make sure that any of us--or our children and grandchildren--are around in another hundred years.
Taken together, if these trends, which are based upon extensive photographic and on-the-ice observations, continue, not only could we see the oceans rise not just a few feet, but perhaps 15 feet within most of our lifetimes, with devastating results for coastal cities and regions around the world, but we could see runaway global warming ignited that could put the earth on a one-way trip to a mass extinction event worse, perhaps, than what hit the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
In a remarkable book titled Six Degrees, author Mark Lynas, a science writer with National Geographic Magazine, documents in chilling detail what will happen to life on earth, and to the earth itself, with each degree celsius that the earth's average temperature rises.
Chapters 1-3, which document temperature rises of 1-3 degrees celsius (about 2-6 degrees fahrenheit) are pretty disturbing, but the later chapters documenting temperature rises of 4, 5 and 6 degrees celsius, are truly nightmarish. And the scariest part is that once you get to the 3 degree celsius level, the stage gets set for the higher temperatures, making it difficult if not impossible to avoid the increasingly worsening scenarios. This is because once the temperature gets a few degrees out of whack, crucial forests die off, whole swaths of temperate zone landmasses become desert, and worst of all, the permafrost in the Siberian and North American tundra disappears, freeing massive amounts of trapped methane gas from the rotting swamps and peat bogs that cover that region. And methane, remember, is 23 times as potent a global warming gas as is carbon dioxide.
Worse yet, as melting polar regions lead to a slowdown in the oceanic currents and as the stagnating seas begin to warm, an even greater danger--the release of even vaster quantities of methane trapped as icy hydrates under the sea floor--is posed. If these hydrates pop to the surface in massive "burps," they could, Lynas reports, mimic several such events in the Earth's past, causing global temperatures to soar, and the oceans to become stagnant, anoxic (devoid of oxygen), lifeless pools, which would then begin emitting vast amounts of toxic sulfur dioxide gas. On several occasions, Lynas notes, life itself was threatened on Earth when just such a thing happened, and if such a scenario played out again, life would be threatened again. The difference is that now the sun itself is hotter than it was 55 or 150 million years ago, making a return to "normal" that much more problematic.
Scientists can debate the risks of such a disaster's occurring, and certainly there is (thank goodness!) a minority view that we are not headed towards climate catastrophe.
Hope, as candidate Barak Obama is wont to say, is a fine thing, and I'm all for hope.
But here's the rub: If the majority scientific view is correct, and there is even a small chance that the Earth is headed towards a historically unprecedented rapid heating event that would bring temperatures into the range where methane will start to be the main threat, then doesn't prudence and sanity require that we embark ASAP on efforts to prevent that happening?
The cost of seriously combating climate change now--and I'm not talking about switching from cars that get 25 mpg to cars that get 60 mpg, and switching from coal-powered generating plants to LNG-powered plants; I'm talking about eliminating the internal combustion engine as a mode of transportation, and eliminating carbon-fueled generating plants altogether--would be enormous. That is clear. To actually cut global carbon emissions by 80 percent from current levels over the next decade, we would, economists say, have to forego a couple percentage points of global economic growth every year, cut consumption dramatically, embark on major campaigns to save rainforests, and halt and even reverse population growth. We would, ultimately, have to change our entire economic model from one of growth to one of sustainability.
But how do we compare that kind of hardship with extinction?
Let's say, hypothetically, that there is a 10-percent chance that we are headed down a road that leads to extinction of the human race in a scant 1-200 years, if we do nothing dramatic to change course. And let's say there's a 90 percent chance that nothing bad is going to happen. Should we take that gamble and carry on as we are?
If you say yes, let me change the odds. Suppose there's a 30-percent chance we're headed the way of the dinosaur if we don't change our ways dramatically? Still think we should just carry on?
Personally, I think the evidence before my eyes, in the earlier budding of the trees that I have witnessed just over the last five or six years, and the evidence of the melting away of the Arctic ice cap, not to mention the above-mentioned galloping melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, suggests that the odds of disaster are much, much greater than 50 percent (in fact, I think they're closer to 90 percent!).
Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
The Cheney Doctrine for preemptive war has notoriously been termed the 1% solution. Apparently, the notion is that if there is a 1% chance that another country could use, or help a terrorist group use, a WMD against the United States, then the U.S. has the right to preemptively strike that nation to prevent a future use of a WMD on the U.S..
I have long thought as I heard the bubble heads debate global warming how ineffectively the real scientists argue their points. They concede before the argument that they must prove to a scientific certainty that global warming exists, and thereby lose before they even begin the debate. The real standard on this, and on such other issues as the levels of mercury allowable in our drinking water, etc., should be just like Cheney's 1% solution. For the outcome is exactly the same. If there is a 1% chance that global warming is occurring, then we must preemptively strike at the sources of global warming. We need not prove to a scientific certainty that something is killing us: it is sufficient to prove that something might be killing us. That "something" must then be eliminated from our environment until it is proved to a scientific certainty that it is not harmful to us. This is the sea change in attitude progressives must bring about, even in our own scientific ranks.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 273 comments)
on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 7:14:13 PM
If there's a 90% chance of a mass extinction event occuring in our lifetimes, then it is already far too late to start worrying about it. I think that is probably more likely the case. The politicians know that it is too late and will not say anything because it would cause a global panic. Better to let everyone die out quietly than to have to deal with the rioting, looting, rape and murder that would happen when you tell everyone there is no hope left. If it is too late, I would be thankful to the governments of the world if they didn't tell anyone so I could live out my final days without fear of being set upon and killed by my neighbors.
by
Watching (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 314 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 8:50:33 PM
You give the politicians too much credit for brains
Most of them are really stupid people who don't know a lick of science, and simply don't believe the evidence being presented to them, if they even listen to it or read it. They are so busy ammassing ill-gotten wealth and screwing the rest of us that they don't even think about this kind of serious stuff.
Sadly, the general public is even stupider.
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Dave Lindorff (314 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 150 comments)
on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 9:16:00 PM
I'm no scientist and by all means a "lay man" but common sense goes a long way. CO2 accounts for about four hundreths of a percent by volume of the atmosphere. That is .04%. Think about how minuscule that is. This is up about 30% since the dawn of the industrial revolution. That is a .012 percent increase by volume. Of that, man made CO2 releases account for about 4% of the total CO2 currently being released to the atmosphere. That is .0016 percent by volume of the atmosphere. That deserves repeating; .0016%. These are "trace" amounts. These amounts are so small that nearly all studies are measured in parts per millions or parts per billions because percentages don't do it justice.
C'mon, really? I have a hard time believing something of such small proportions could have much of an effect on anything. Say no to a Carbon Tax!
Not to mention the effect of CO2 on temperature is questionable. Acording to A publication of the National Center for Public Policy Research, National Policy Analysis:http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA349.html, "carbon dioxide accounts for less than ten percent of the greenhouse effect - whose ability to absorb heat is quite limited".
According to Universal Industrial Gases, Inc: http://www.uigi.com/carbondioxide.html, "The rate of increase in carbon dioxide content of air is currently more than 2 ppm annually." And given man made emmissions only contribute to 4%, we only contribute .0008% by volume annually. That's an awful small number.
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Keith Fisher (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 22 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 11:48:06 AM
The percentage is irrelevant. It's the change that matters.
Think about plutonium, or cyanide, and the minute amounts it takes to kill a person. In the case of plutonium it's literally a few atoms that do the trick.
Likewise, one volcano blowing up (Krakatoa), caused a year in Europe with no summer (snow in July). How much volume do you think the dust from that one volcanic eruption occupied compared to all the atmosphere?
The point is that CO2 is a very potent blanket for infra red light, and it's transparent to visible light, so like a roach motel, the light energy comes in and reaches the earth, but it can't check out as heat.
You are trying to apply common sense but science is not always so obvious. The point is that C)2 can be shown in the lab, and in the history of the earth's ice-age cycle, to be a potent global warming causal factor, and we are doubling the amount of it in our atmosphere, and in danger of trebling it.
Worse yet, at some point our actions will release methane, which is mor than 20 times as potent as CO2.
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Dave Lindorff (314 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 150 comments)
on Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 12:07:35 PM
