We Must Act Now on Climate.
By Thom Hartmann A...
The action we take right now on climate change could dictate what life on this planet is like for the next 10,000 years.
According to a new study published in the journal “Nature Climate Change,” “The next few decades offer a brief window of opportunity to minimize large-scale and potentially catastrophic climate change that will extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far.”
In other words, we may be looking at our last chance to ensure that future generations can survive on our warming planet. This new study says that if we put off reducing carbon emissions by even ten years, it will have a huge impact on sea level rise, ocean acidification, and peak atmospheric temperatures.
Researchers warn that our current goal of 2 degree Celsius rise in average temperatures already locks in about 25 meters of sea level rise over the next 2,000 years. If we don't meet that 2-degree goal, sea level rise could be as high as 50 meters – roughly 75 feet – which would change the map of the world as we know it.
In addition to sea level rise, our current rate of pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will increase ocean acidification and pretty much lock in the destruction of marine ecosystems throughout the world. Once our oceans are destroyed and our coastal environments under water, life as we know it will cease to exist.
Thomas Stocker, a climate physicist who worked on this recent study, said, “The long-term view sends the chilling message of what the real risks and consequences are of the fossil fuel era.” He added, “It will commit us to massive adaptation efforts so that for many, dislocation and migration becomes the only option.”
If we don't want the next generations to be faced with such a dystopian survival, we must act now to establish policies that will bring about a cleaner, greener future.
Comments
#2
Thom, 50 meters is more like 163 feet than 75 feet. You must be approximating 25 meters.
#3
The Earth and Mars have had cooling and warming periods in harmony with one another, and the current ones are no different. And the "Man Made Global Warming" people have not forecasted very well. I think we should conserve carbon fuel becasue "Waste not want not" .... And I have been promoting conservation of our resources since 1968, when they were forecasting global cooling due to carbon. What we should do is repeal the FICA/FUI taxes on the first $250,000 of earning. And make up the lost tax revenue by taxing non-renewable energy. That would be a wise tax policy, which would promote employment and conservation of our resources. With no lost nor gain in tax revenue to the government.
#4
Acting now is imperative in my opinion as well. One option that doesn't get the attention warranted is Liquid Flourine Thorium Reactor technology. A google search will reveal ample information on the advantages of this technology. We must get over the schism of nuclear energy. Development with the emphasis on energy production over military uses will result in safe, clean and abundant bulk energy production lacking in current renewable energy technologies. LFTR's were abandoned in the 60's because they could not produce the Plutonium for bombs. Thorium is an currently unused byproduct of rare earth mining and is abundant world wide. China currently supplies 90% of the rare earths used in hightech products, the US having abandoning rare earth mining because we didn't know what to do with the Thorium. China is currently developing LFTR technology and IF the US doesn't act we will certainly be buying energy and reactors from them.
For more information search youtube for Thorium and Kurt Sorenson and find out what a promising technology LFTR's are once you get past the word nuclear.
On a different note, our schism with "nuclear" extends to the medical field where nuclear resonance imaging was changed to magnetic resonance imaging to make people more comfortable with its use.
#5
Hi Thom, heres a view from the other side of the climate change question:
#6
Anyone aware of what the Iran deal says about the Trans-Caspian Oil Transport project? I would think gaining Iran's support would tweak Putin's nose and slip a pipeline under those belonging to progressives and greenies. (Speaking of which what has been the status of our Iran located military bases and how does the new agreement change their status?)
#7
1 meter = 3.28 feet -- 75 meters = 246 feet, 0-3/4 inches.
The highest point in the District of Columbia is currently 409 feet above current sea level. The high point in Florida is 345 feet.
#8
math has been corrected by others.
#9
For 20 years I have been waiting for the oceans to rise. Is it maybe because they forgot to factor in the warmer it gets the more the ocean evaporates. Al Gore can't be wrong.
#10
Limits To Growth (LtG) was required reading my senior year at Cal in 1972. Of its 12 scenarios, all but one expected "overshoot and collapse" of global populations would begin in 1975. The 1% chose to do nothing, and still has done nothing, to even begin development of an effective detoxification process in response to what Claude Levi-Strauss called "the poisoning of the planet."
Originally, that decline of global human populations was expected in 2030-35. Updated prior to Fukushima, that was reduced to 2024.
Regardless, the "tipping point" for overshoot and collapse remained 1975 as our man made pollutants were gradually absorbed into the various food chains upon which us Apex Consumers depend.
Last I heard, there were 90,000 man made chemical pollutants combining and recombining in unanticipated ways into our bodies and our biosphere. Unfortunately, global warming has become a smoke screen to deflect our attention and resources to more profitable ventures.
The "declining resources crisis," originally reported as a contributing factor to the political instability in Cairo after Mubarak was deposed, was also a contributing factor to the instability in Syria a few weeks later. The most important of those resources? Abundant uncontaminated water.
Similar reports from Mexico, California, Flint, many acquifers and deltas on this continent, South America, Africa, India, SE Asia, Australia and the Muddled East are reported almost daily. Additional evidence comes from dying corals all over the world, and the 500M refugees and immigrants abandoning all hope of "home."
Is this "Stinkin' Thinkin'"?
Yes.
So what? We're all going to die anyway, right? Given all the other additional unanticipated consequences of our response, is an Apollo 13 type rescue of our planet and us life forms possible?
#11
With gas at less than two dollars a gallon, we're just squandering our finite resources, not to mention the damage it's doing to our economy. All sources of energy are important and should be allowed to co exist. Government should fix gas prices to keep existing fracking operations viable. These same higher gas prices will encourage more research into other sources of energy.
#12
We Must Act Now on Climate.
The title of this garbage thread. We were supposed to act 10 years ago with the release of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". 10 years has passed. The polar ice caps are still there. Miami Beach is still there. Downtown Manhatten is not underwater. Greenland is still covered by hundreds of feet of ice.
"The next few decades offer us a brief window....." blah,blah,blah. I thought we were past the tipping point? We were beyond the point of no return. See Bill McCibben. Now Thom is telling us that we still have time. Can you climate alarmists please get your story straight? Aren't we already doomed? Putting off carbon reduction for 10 years...blah blah? Hey Thom, ten years from now people will still be doing the same thing we are doing today. Driving, flying, boating, and pumping fossil fuel from the ground. Seen the price of gas lately? Fossil fuels are being used at record amounts.
Now Thom moves the goalposts again. What the climate will look like in 10,000 years? 25 meters ocean rise in 2000 years? Newsflash for Thom. You won't be around and neither will anyone currently residing on earth. Go ahead and tell me you give a rat's rearend that you care what things will be like 10,000 years from now. What a joke.
#13
Kilo you forgot to mention the trillions spent on this that could of payed for more police, Health care, collage etc.
#14
David32, didn't you post this info on a recent CBS news, website article? But the last time I went to that article your post of this data had been removed. Now why do you think it was removed? Because it's legit? Because it's significant? I'm going to read on your suggestion and get some more insight. Thanks David32. I'll get back to you on this. Interesting
#15
Such dreamers! Nothing is going to be done about climate change because big fossil & big banking (and those two are intimately connected) own our government, our institutions, our media, ENGOs like Greenpeace and even a lot of the science research. Corrupt politicians, like Obama, make lots of promises, gentleman's agreements settled with a handshake in Paris, that mean zip. Like Trump or Cruz will honor Obama's promises. Neither will Hillary or Bernie for that matter.
So instead of replacing fossil fuels with clean nuclear energy, we will have more of the same, burn-baby-burn, with added $trillions thrown down the sewer on nutty scams like wind & solar, hydrogen, carbon capture, agrofuels, tidal & wave energy. Yeah that will do lots. Like the corrupt Big Oil/Bankster stooge Hillary's plan to put up a bunch of home solar panels. Jesus, people are so gullible and stupid to believe that will do anything to reduce our fossil consumption.
The World's #1 solar producer is Germany. Their all out program on solar and wind for 25 yrs, and now they have the 2nd highest electricity emissions in Europe per kwh generated and the 2nd highest electricity prices. They have reached 6.1% solar electricity in 2014, 1.2% of primary energy. And now Germany's Solar PV installation rate is now on a steep decline. 7.6 GW in 2012, 3.3 in 2013, 1.9 in 2014. So much for "solar exponential growth".
So Hillary Clinton's nutty solar plan is really just greenwashing for fossil, mostly natural gas, which is the big thing lately. Solar energy just guarantees a fossil fuel future - a more expensive fossil future. Since all wind & solar does is push up electricity prices so the poor can't afford electricity. IN Germany some 800 thousand poor have had their electricity disconnected because they can't afford the high electricity rates. They call that "energy efficiency" over there. Germany's biggest success in reducing emissions. Make energy so expensive that the poor can't afford to use much.
There is only one way to replace fossil fuels, and that is a rapid build-out of nuclear power, and that sure as hell ain't happening. So forget about it. Burn-baby-burn. You might as well go with the cheapest energy, so the poor can afford electricity, scrap all the $trillions going to nutty scams.
Eventually fossil will become too expensive to supply world demand, and China will go Nuclear, upsetting the apple cart, embarrassing everyone else, and then finally the world will succumb to the inevitable, and release the nuclear juggernaut, and then everyone will complain about what a bunch of lazy, sleazy, cretins our generation were, that we blockaded nuclear and let the whole world go to shit.
#16
The Kochs Are Plotting A Multimillion-Dollar Assault On Electric Vehicles A new group could spend $10 million a year on the campaign.
"Once launched, the new group is expected to use paid and earned media to push its pro-petroleum transportation messages, and do research to bolster the cause."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-electric-vehicles_us_56c4d63ce4...
#17
American Spring?
Bernie called for an American Revolution. Change the framing of the message. In the news recently Obama is criticizing Britain for the problems in Libya. Bullshit, it was America that overthrew Ghadafi. I just saw that they have confirmed a list of terrorists? I saw one on another web site. Financial Times had a list of the Fortune 500 companies. They had names but they didn't have the blood types. Or maybe it should have been mixed blood, since they are sucking the blood out of everybody. I think I know how to have peace in the Middle East! STOP SELLING THEM WEAPONS, FUCKING IDIOTS! Joe Biden just went to Israel to sell them billions of weapons. And nobody has said anything about Israel building illegal suburbs out of Palestinian bodies. Do you think they are angry? Maybe Trump was right, there is an anger in the Muslim world. Gee, does the fact that we have been at war for 15 years (no pun intended) have anything to do with this anger? Didn't we embrace the courage of a Tunisian who set himself on fire? Maybe he wasn't the brave one, maybe it was the millions that decided to do something to support the idea.
Bernie is calling for a revolution, but he should embrace his idea, otherwise he's just another politician. I have heard that he supported Martin Luther King. Does he remember his history? MLK was going to a rally in Memphis to raise the wages for the sanitary workers. He was also speaking out on the Viet Nam War. He was talking about the military using minorities and the poor as cannon fodder for the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). This got him killed. It is time for Bernie to go over the top. He needs to renounce the MIC. He might be killed. Get real, the MIC and Wall Street have no scruples. Aren't you prepared for this possibility? Start talking about it because you should know your history. If this does happen, what will happen? Will the revolution stop? Or will it take off like the Arab Spring. They can kill 1, or 5, or 10 people. But are they ready to stop millions? Who is ready to help. Climate Activists? Black Lives Matters? The Democratic Party? (just kidding, ha ha!). Why not all of them. But there needs to be people in every office to take over the government from the corporatists. But I would like the revolution to start without an act of violence. SO START THE REOLUTION!
We are heading into March Madness. These are all schools that are trying to divest from fossil fuels. Why don't the basketball players tell their supporters to NOT travel to the games. If they decide that they do not want to travel unless they have electric vehicles for travel. It worked for a losing football team who had courage. Why not a winning basketball team? Start the revolution.
BLM should start their American Spring. They should embrace the philosophy of a Transition Village to rebuild their communities. We are heading into the springtime, so now is the perfect time to start. Have them demand help for urban gardens, for help with putting in wind turbines and solar panels, as well as help in insulating their habitats. They need to start now, I don't see the world surviving another year in the present system.
Jill Stein is right, we need to say stop the MIC and start a war for renewable energy. stop making weapons and build solar panels, windmills and batteries for storage. Quit blaming Exxon for the problem, start acting. People need to buy electric vehicles. Anyone that has bought a fossil fuel vehicle in the last 10 years is part of the problem. We need to repair our past mistakes and go forward.
Tell Bernie to start to embrace the words of King. He will have the support of millions, maybe billions of people. They can stop one or two individuals. But a movement?
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The most frightening comments from Rethugs was not one of climate change deniers but from Bush and Cheney during their pretendship. I cannot locate the interview but the gist was they did not deny global changes but just didn't care since Man always has to deal with something or other. I think this must be due to the immutable 0th plank of the party platform, most recently uncovered in Flint: Wealth Through Genocide.