Civilization's last chance. Global Warming running out of control?

international | environment | other press Tuesday May 13, 2008 19:15 by Terence

The planet is nearing a tipping point on climate change, and it gets much worse, fast.

This article from the LA Times by Bill McKibben presents the case that the situation with the Earth's environment is far worse than has been admitted so far and he reports on the latest scientific paper from climate scientist James Hansen which in the opening paragraph he says:

"if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."

This in fact is a very important statement because most governments and other organizations are aiming for a level of 450 ppm and with the current level of in-action they will greatly exceed that.

In the paper by Hansen it is clear that the effects of climate change have kicked in much stronger than anticipated and that we are already in a very dangerous situation.

McKibben in his article, writing to a US audience, but just as applicable here, makes the case that collectively we have complete underestimated this thing and our token actions aren't near enough. He calls this our last chance and echoing Hansen says what is needed is a Marshall plan of sorts and to put the whole economy on the equivalent of a war footing in order to solve this problem.

Here's some quotes from the article:

Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.

This last point is significant, because the summer melt in 2007 resulted in almost 50% of the Arctic Ice disappearing. At this rate the North Pole will be ice free in probably less than 5 years..

Not only that CO-2 emissions are not slowing down, instead they are accelerating!

...In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.


Even more dramatic is the report that methane levels are rising again. They had fallen recently. Methane is 20 times more potent than C0-2, although it is shorter lived in the atmosphere. One of the feared feedbacks (of scientists) that the trapped methane might be released and cause a rapid positive feedback, looks like it may actually be happening.... ..think the size of the tundra regions in Canada and Siberia ....

And suddenly the news arrives that the amount of methane, another potent greenhouse gas accumulating in the atmosphere, has unexpectedly begun to soar as well. It appears that we've managed to warm the far north enough to start melting huge patches of permafrost, and massive quantities of methane trapped beneath it have begun to bubble forth.

And yet more quotes:

His phrase was: "if we wish to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." A planet with billions of people living near those oh-so-floodable coastlines. A planet with ever-more vulnerable forests. (A beetle, encouraged by warmer temperatures, has already managed to kill 10 times more trees than in any previous infestation across the northern reaches of Canada this year. This means far more carbon heading for the atmosphere and apparently dooms Canada's efforts to comply with the Kyoto protocol, which was already in doubt because of its decision to start producing oil for the U.S. from Alberta's tar sands.)

We're the ones who kicked the warming off; now the planet is starting to take over the job. Melt all that Arctic ice, for instance, and suddenly the nice white shield that reflected 80% of incoming solar radiation back into space has turned to blue water that absorbs 80% of the sun's heat. Such feedbacks are beyond history, though not in the sense that Francis Fukuyama had in mind.

So it would seem that climate scientists all along had been far too reticent in their predictions and it was probably because in the back of their minds they were fearing their own jobs. Indeed the White House & NASA attempted to censure James Hansen but luckily for us, he is far too well known for them to reign him in.

The full article is at the URL in the related link.
See also: (1st Oct 2007) Arctic Sea Ice Shatters All Previous Record Lows
http://www.nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/2007....html