Climate change? Try Catastrophic Climate Breakdown

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/29-6



Already, a thousand blogs and columns insist the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's new report is a rabid concoction of scare stories whose purpose is to destroy the global economy. But it is, in reality, highly conservative.

Reaching agreement among hundreds of authors and reviewers ensures that only the statements which are hardest to dispute are allowed to pass. Even when the scientists have agreed, the report must be tempered in another forge, as politicians question anything they find disagreeable: the new report received 1,855 comments from 32 governments, and the arguments raged through the night before launch.

In other words, it's perhaps the biggest and most rigorous process of peer review conducted in any scientific field, at any point in human history.

There are no radical departures in this report from the previous assessment, published in 2007; just more evidence demonstrating the extent of global temperature rises, the melting of ice sheets and sea ice, the retreat of the glaciers, the rising and acidification of the oceans and the changes in weather patterns. The message is familiar and shattering: "It's as bad as we thought it was."

[snagglepuss]

1. Catastrophic Climate Breakdown. That term should go viral.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Maybe even "Climate Breakdown" would work great (shorter). nt

[MoonRiver]

12. No it needs the "catastrophic" part to get the proper impact. n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Sure, but sometimes there is no space in headlines. The breakdown implies catastrophic, too. nt

[MoonRiver]

16. Well, maybe the word "total" would be better then.

The fact that this situation is incredibly grave needs emphasis.

[daleanime]

2. K&R....

Almost no one wants to think about how bad its getting.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

3. It's also quite hopeless.

CO2 rates of year over year change vary based on how well the global economy is doing, nothing else. The only significantly large area to ever achieve a truly significant actual absolute drop in CO2 emissions was Eastern Europe right after the fall of communism. Why? Most of their factories shut down, that's why. It actually shows up as a significant slowing in the rate of CO2 increase back in the nineties, if you adjust the values for year over year change.
That's it for success in bringing down CO2 emissions. The only other decent story is the US, which has actually managed to meet its Kyoto targets because of a combination of a slow economy plus a huge increase in the use of natural gas and corresponding decrease in the use of coal for producing electricity, which managed a near miraculous shift out of the worst fossil fuel and into the best from the POV of CO2 emissions, but of course this is due to fracking. Meantime though Japan's shutdown of its nuclear reactors meant it is now pumping out way more CO2 than it used to, so probably in the end that balanced the decrease in the US's emissions.
Meantime, India, China, Brazil, et al, continue to rapidly increase their own emissions.
There is no hope. Enjoy this planet while you can.
Eat mussels, they won't be around much longer. Them or any other shellfish.

[immoderate]

18. Cognative dissonance...

is how we "survive."

--imm

[BelgianMadCow]

4. What people don't really grasp, is the concept of something being "non-linear"

just like one of our key problems is not grasping what an exponential function is (as in: paying a percentage interest on your own money when it is loaned into existence: a debt you'll never, ever pay back).

At some point big events start happening that throw the climate change process off its gradual course. That's because they constitute a "positive feedback loop": it gets a little warmer, the process speeds up, causing it to get a little warmer, and the process speeds up again and so on.

When I read about the permafrost thawing (releasing methane), mountains in the alps becoming unstable and the sighting of mile-wide gas vortexes in mid-ocean (which come from methane ice that has become unstable), I don't think we're in the gradual stage anymore.

The best-known postive feedback loop is the north pole ice cap shrinking, causing the darker sea to absorb more heat, causing more ice to mealt and so on.

The insane winter we had in Europe was related to the jet stream not being in its usual location, and an unusually strong arctic high. Another unusual arctic high-pressure ridge was wat turned Sandy into the coast.

[hootinholler]

5. At this point it will need active solutions

Maybe an Apollo Project to put a huge venetian blind in space.

[G_j]

6. K&R

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[xchrom]

7. !

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.

[truebluegreen]

10. Actually, every time they re-evaluate they discover

that it is worse than they thought it was.

[raouldukelives]

11. Check with a financial planner. Time to profit off climate change has never been better.

They can help you devise a long range plan to fund climate deniers, corporate rulers and the TPP. Won't you help today?
If not for yourself, for the sweet satisfaction of knowing you did your best to make things worse for everyone who comes after you.

[deutsey]

13. I am so tired of ignoramuses fucking everything up for us all

There should be a massive international effort to do whatever we can to limit and diminish as much as we can what appears to be a looming nightmare future.

[Egalitarian Thug]

15. K&R Thanks xchrom. n/t

[CrispyQ]

17. Chasing Ice, by James Balog, a former climate change denier.

Stunning, visual evidence that the planet is warming/melting. His crew catch a 75 minute calving event that will leave your jaw on the floor. (preview at 1:44) Available at Netflix.