The ecological science continues to accumulate that abrupt, deadly and irreversible climate collapse [search] is well advanced and accelerating. One new study finds climate is changing more quickly and deeply then predicted [ark] in recent IPCC reports [search]. Dramatic Arctic melting [search] (including Greenland) and feedbacks far beyond those expected is noted. Another study concludes that today's greenhouse gas emissions will continue to heat up the planet for hundreds of thousands of years [ark], in human terms essentially forever. This comes as world governments head to Poland for yet another climate conference, to whine about poor economic growth and why they can't possibly cut their own carbon emissions, demanding instead that others address this terrible emergency. When the ecological bubble bursts we all die.
November 2008 Archives
Greenhouse gases hit a record level last year [ark], well beyond what threatens the habitability of the Earth for humans and all creatures. And indications are that most global citizens are prepared to sacrifice [ark | more\ark] and pay some price to avert the worst effects of abrupt climate changes [search]. "43% of the 12,000 respondents of the survey chose climate change ahead of the global economy when asked about their current concerns." This constitutes a global mandate for climate action.
Where are our leaders? The U.S. is not listening to the people [ark], Italy desperately clings to the past [ark], Australia blames others [ark] and China and India shirk their responsibilities [ark]. Globally tens of trillions of dollars are being spent to prop up an economic system based upon the environmental impossibility of maintaining exponential economic growth forever [search], the same growth that has caused the climate and other environmental problems. How ridiculous for governments to tax their citizens to pay failed banks to lend to already over-extended consumers.
It is all coming down baby. The only question is whether we will have the will, strength and remaining ecosystems to reconstitute truly civilized, equitable and just sustainable societies. Or will we enter an era of barbarism in vain attempts to first continue our over consumption (based upon continued ecosystem destruction) and then just to survive. The human family's future and prospects for shared survival is being determined now.
A coal plant permit in Utah was rejected [ark] yesterday by the E.P.A on the basis of lack of control of carbon dioxide [search]. The ruling puts in question permits for as many as 100 new plants [search], and should aid lawsuits against them as well.
This comes as the International Energy Agency confirms that coal will continue being the leading source of energy globally until at least 2030 [ark]. A week earlier in their annual report that had warned that the world's energy use was "patently unsustainable" [ark] and warned of 6°C rise in average global temperatures [ark]. As long as coal is burned to produce electricity, dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there is zero chance of maintaining historically reliable climatic patterns or a habitable Earth.
Arctic melting leading to methane release [ark | more\ark] -- a major climate change feedback -- has kicked in again after an eight year hiatus, indicating a major quickening of the climate crisis. A global study in Geophysical Research Letters found a major increase in methane levels of about 28 million tonnes since mid-2006 due to release of gas in and near the Arctic. Methane is responsible for some 20% of global warming -- and Arctic warming is melting permafrost, leading to increased bacterial emissions from wetland areas. Indications are frozen methane clathrates found on the ocean floors [search] are also melting .The finding comes as research published in Nature Geoscience found solid evidence that temperatures are rising in Antarctica [ark] as well, and that climate change there and in the Arctic was conclusively caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gas.
Humanity is at a dramatic juncture. We can continue careening wildly towards global ecological collapse including abandoning collapsed ecosystems [ark], with token feel-good efforts to appear like we are doing something, or we can commit immediately to dramatic ecologically sufficient policy responses. These include rigorous voluntary incentives to reduce human population [search] and consumption [search], immediately ending ancient forest logging [search] and coal use [search], urgently embracing energy efficiency [search], conservation [search] and renewable energy [search], and fully protecting remaining intact ecosystems while beginning the ecological restoration of entire regions [search].
Less rigorous ecological proposals acquiesce to the inevitability of global ecological collapse and are just as guilty as the industrial growth machine's destroyers in ensuring the demise of being. It is well past time for each of us to embrace both a personal and social revolutionary spirit of action -- as we both reduce our own environmental impact, and join with those intensifying global ecological protest [ark]. Shared survival depends upon successfully demanding these and other ecologically sufficient measures are swiftly adopted.
