Catastrophe Is Coming 32 comments

18 Dec 2007 @ 08:48, by Richard Carlson When to the new eyes of thee All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly, To each other linked are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star. ---Francis Thompson A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. ---William Blake When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. ---Kikuyu Proverb The chart illustrated an article by Les Blumenthal in Sunday's McClatchy newspapers, under the headline "Oceans' growing acidity alarms scientists." [link] Last week my wife of 25 years fired off a letter to the editor. She didn't used to do this kind of thing, but world developments in recent years have convinced her wake-up calls like this are crucial. She comes from a family tradition of citizen involvement in current affairs. There's a big difference between a demonstration with folk singers and the hard work of political organizing. Increasingly she's going to community meetings nearly every evening, some of which she chairs. The letter went to our biweekly newspaper, The Athens News. It was about global warming. The editor, Terry Smith, emailed back saying the piece was too long for the letters feature, but offered to publish it in the occasional Reader's Forum on the Opinion Page. He asked her, though, to compose a blurb about who she is. Well, that's kind of hard to do so we sat down together and came up with something simple and to the point: "Dana Carlson has been a teacher for 30 years. She's been an advocate for sane environmental policy even longer." Here's her article~~~ Is it possible to get Americans to care about global warming? How about James Lovelock’s terrifying forecast that ‘“We are on the edge of the greatest die-off humanity has ever seen, We will be lucky if 20% of us survive what is coming. We should be scared stiff.” (TimesONLINE, May 2007) Lovelock forecasts the death of 6.5 BILLION people and 70% of species between now and the end of the century. By 2020 (12 years from now), drought and other extreme weather will be commonplace. Soon thereafter, the southern half of the United States will be unlivable desert, as will most of Europe, and all the rest of the tropical and formerly temperate regions of the world. James Lovelock is the scientist who developed the theory of the Earth as a self-regulating super-organism---whose system of positive and negative feedbacks keep our planet habitable. Accepted as the basis of present climate science, this theory explains the rapid advance of melting Arctic ice (melting at a rate---not twice as fast---but 10 times as fast as predicted by computer models) and the failure of the oceans to absorb the carbon being put into the atmosphere. What does that mean? Earth relies on a system of ocean and land carbon sinks to absorb excess carbon from the atmosphere. Recent research shows that the Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb carbon has seriously weakened, decreasing by 35% over the last 25 years. On, land, excessive droughts are decreasing the efficiency of plants to take up carbon. Since 2000, atmospheric carbon has increased 35% faster than expected---in large part because the system of carbon sinks is failing. When carbon dioxide mixes with ocean water, the reaction produces carbonic acid. The oceans have increased in acidity by 30%---and the prediction is that acidity could increase by 150% by 2100. The acidification of the oceans will have devastating effects on marine life from the bottom (plankton) to the top (tuna and humans) of the food chain. Plankton take in huge amounts of carbon dioxide, using the carbon for growth, while releasing oxygen during the process of photosynthesis. When the plankton die off, that leaves more unabsorbed carbon in the oceans (increased acidification) and in the atmosphere (rapidly accelerating global warming). Plankton already have declined by up to 10% in some ocean basins over the last two decades. The Arctic and Antarctic regions, when frozen and covered with snow, reflect back much of the sun’s heating radiation. As these areas melt, the darker water and land absorbs at least 90% of the sunlight, which greatly accelerates the rate of warming (you can feel this heat island effect in black-topped parking lots). Scientists now speculate that the Arctic may be ice-free in five years. Rising sea levels mean the loss of immense areas of coastline. Permafrost in areas like Alaska, Siberia, and Greenland has acted as a carbon sink, keeping dead vegetation from rotting (and releasing carbon into the atmosphere). Now the permafrost is melting and, as micro-organisms break down this rotting vegetation, massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane are released---and methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. All these are examples of positive (accelerating) feedbacks. As one system fails, it contributes to the further destabilization of the entire system, until the system crashes. It is amazing to what lengths people and national leaders will go to deny that the planetary organism is failing. The total ignorance of how humans depend on an adequately functioning environment, coupled with a need to maintain our wasteful American lifestyle at any cost, means we just can’t be bothered to care whether our children and grandchildren survive. Politicians claim that it is too expensive to change because they can’t be bothered to educate themselves about what inaction will cost. While Republican senators shill for automakers and oil companies instead of passing an energy bill that would reduce carbon emissions by increasing fuel efficiency and increasing renewable energy, the Bush administration and China play the blame game, each accusing the other of not doing their part to cut emissions…and so neither country does anything but INCREASE its energy consumption. Rather than decrease US dependence on foreign oil (and so increase security) by mandating energy conservation and alternative renewable energy sources, the Bush administration has actually increased foreign oil imports. Instead of moving to renewable, carbonless sources of energy, power companies want to build more coal-fired plants that will spew even more carbon into the atmosphere. This is insane. It’s suicide. If we don’t stop now, it will be too late. Demand immediate action by your senators, congressmen, and president. And then, start looking at your own energy consumption and how you can decrease it significantly. You want to be patriotic? Change your light bulbs to compact fluorescents, weatherize your home, get rid of your gas-hog car, dry your clothes on a clothesline, turn off your energy-wasting appliances, and educate yourself on the global climate change. The future of your country and the lives of your children and grandchildren depend on it. [link]

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