January 2006 Archives

In an unusually shrill tone from usually staid scientists, the top climate researchers from the UK have warned "the world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiralling towards destruction." They predict that even a 3°C rise in temperatures would kill 400 million, wipe out countless species and lead to disease pandemics. A 3°C rise is half of what is predicted currently by the end of the century.

To keep global average temperature increase at 2°C, global emissions must peak by 2025 and then come down by 2.6 percent a year. They stressed that climate change was undeniable, that avoiding "dangerous" climate change is vital but difficult, and that continued governmental policy inaction was unacceptable. Such shrill scientific predictions make my long standing warnings that global ecological collapse and attendant deaths of billions is imminent all the more credible. The sky IS falling.

With nearly every reputable scientist now accepting the reality of human fossil fuel caused global warming, and with the symptoms painfully evident in the natural world, increased scientific attention is now going to ascertaining at what point the damage becomes so severe and long-lasting that the Earth's habitability is put in doubt. There likely exists some "tipping point" beyond which abrupt climate changes and their deleterious and even deadly impacts are irreversible. Given global evidence that current abrupt climate change is on the far extreme of predicted rapidity and severity, in my estimation we are at or closely approaching the point where climate changes will kill billions and make vast swathes of the Earth essentially uninhabitable. Against such a massive threat a major ramping up of international policy responses including investments in energy conservation and renewable energy, and reductions in global emissions primarily through carbon taxes, are a necessity for human survival - much less prosperity.

The Bush administration has tried to silence a top climate scientist at NASA, stopping him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming. It is one thing to have a policy difference (however misinformed), it is quite another to stifle and censor climate science. The Bush administration has crossed the line and their climate change policy is now criminally negligent. The blood of the Earth and human civilization will forever be on the neocons' hands unless they immediately commit to emissions reductions, carbon taxes and massive renewable energy investments.

I have long been a biofuel skeptic largely on the basis of concerns regarding whether their production used more energy than it produced. There are also valid concerns regarding whether food production (and prices) would be adversely impacted upon by large scale energy crops. And Ecological Internet took the lead in highlighting biofuel's potential impact upon forests and other terrestrial ecosystems as pressures increase for cropland and tree plantations to replace natural vegetation. This is particularly true in rainforests as Asian oil palm and to a lesser degree South American soybeans production cause tropical rainforest destruction.

New findings in the journal Science assuage the first concern, finding that ethanol production is more energy-efficient than some experts had realized. This article indicates researchers are aware of concerns regarding energy crops hurting food prices - stating advanced biofuels must be developed from dedicated energy crops. It is troubling though that the future of biofuels is said to be use of tree cellulose to produce fuel. The last thing the world's dwindling forests need is more monocropped tree plantations or logging pressures to produce biofuel. A wood based biofuel industry would be disaster for forests.

2005 was the warmest year since the late 1800s, according to NASA scientists. 1998, 2002 and 2003 and 2004 followed as the next four warmest years. Scientific predictions regarding the rapid rate and serious impacts of climate change caused mostly by fossil fuel emissions have proven correct. Long-standing warnings that climate changes may be abrupt and particularly severe due to runaway positive feedbacks are also appearing to be confirmed. Our response will determine the extent and seriousness of extreme weather, drought, sea rise, agricultural collapse and forest die-back which are now upon us. The future of humanity lies in the balance - we shall either change our ways and evolve, or suffer a hell on Earth and a grisly death of civilization.

The rate of global sea-level rise has sped up during the twentieth century. This disturbing acceleration is predicted by climate models, but has been difficult to spot in real data; natural variations in sea level have masked long-term trends.

A leading scientist writes that climate change will kill billions of people this century as the Earth enters a "fever" phase. James Lovelock is the scientist who propounded that the Earth is a self-regulating organism in the "Gaia Theory". Like me and others, he has concluded that the world has already passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilization as we know it is now unlikely to survive. Humanity has simply overwhelmed the Earth System's myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth habitable and much cooler than it otherwise would be.

Preliminary indications are that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels -- the primary cause of climate change -- have risen abruptly in the past four years. Global warming is entering a new phase, with abrupt and deadly climate changes all the more likely. There is a critical, deadly lack of adequate policy initiatives in response to abrupt, run-away climate disintegration -- the greatest crisis ever faced by humanity.

Solar energy is ready for prime time as California's top energy panel has decided to provide $2.85 billion in funding payable over 11 years, to subsidize development of up to 3,000 megawatts of politically popular but costly solar energy units. Yet sadly, at the federal level America has much to learn from China in terms of promoting renewalbe energy.

Of all the ludicrious, criminally negligent, dangerous shirking of global leadership - the world's leading polluters have announced that their industries will bear most of the responsibility for offsetting global warming. This is the best climate change policy we can expect after two decades of international talks? No talk of binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The best they could do was pledge a combined paltry $127 million for promotion of renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal. This is clearly inadequate.

The leaders of the U.S. China, India, Australia, South Korea and Japan should be rounded up and horsewhipped for an utter lack of stewardship of the global ecological commons. What a bunch of imbeciles. Their utter lack of ability to escape fossil fuel addiction, to limit their populations, protect remaining large natural vegetational expanses -- and the other perfectly sensible policies known, available now and necessary to achieve global ecological sustainability -- threatens humanity's and the Earth's very existence.

The criminal oil/coal industry and government oligarchies that rule much of the world must be removed from power or we will all die.

There is little uncertainty on the mind of Pacific islanders that climate change is causing seas to rise. Nor should there be any doubt in New Orleans, Australia or Texas and Oklahoma that climate change unleashes weather extremes that will kill, destroy and maim. The scientific predictions regarding the impacts of climate change are playing out with alarming frequency. To refuse to recognize climate change as a threat to the Earth's capacity to sustain life is to live in a dangerous state of climate denial. Greenhouse gas emissions will be dramatically reduced and renewable energy pursued aggressively or humanity will implode and crash.

Australia had its warmest year on record in 2005. Only a dullard would suppose that Australia's current severe drought and massive wildfires are not related to climate change and generally large populations living ecologically unsustainable lifestyles. Climate change is the harbinger of global ecological collapse. We are witnessing its beginning in Australia and elsewhere. Destruction of the Earth is so sad and so preventable and oh so utterly deadly.