Climate scientists: It’s basically too late to stop warming

[n2doc]

If you like cool weather and not having to club your neighbors as you battle for scarce resources, now’s the time to move to Canada, because the story of the 21st century is almost written, reports Reuters. Global warming is close to being irreversible, and in some cases that ship has already sailed.

Scientists have been saying for a while that we have until between 2015 and 2020 to start radically reducing our carbon emissions, and what do you know: That deadline’s almost past! Crazy how these things sneak up on you while you’re squabbling about whether global warming is a religion. Also, our science got better in the meantime, so now we know that no matter what we do, we can say adios to the planet’s ice caps.

For ice sheets — huge refrigerators that slow down the warming of the planet — the tipping point has probably already been passed, Steffen said. The West Antarctic ice sheet has shrunk over the last decade and the Greenland ice sheet has lost around 200 cubic km (48 cubic miles) a year since the 1990s.

Here’s what happens next: Natural climate feedbacks will take over and, on top of our prodigious human-caused carbon emissions, send us over an irreversible tipping point. By 2100, the planet will be hotter than it’s been since the time of the dinosaurs, and everyone who lives in red states will pretty much get the apocalypse they’ve been hoping for. The subtropics will expand northward, the bottom half of the U.S. will turn into an inhospitable desert, and everyone who lives there will be drinking recycled pee and struggling to salvage something from an economy wrecked by the destruction of agriculture, industry, and electrical power production.

more

http://grist.org/list/climate-scientists-its-basically-too-late-to-stop-warming/?postpost=v2

[snagglepuss]

1. Words fail.

[riderinthestorm]

2. There are no more words... just catastrophe. nt

[Canuckistanian]

3. Ixnay on the anadaCay thing

We don't want hoards of survivalists crawling across the border, looking for caves.

Those caves have already been earmarked for members of Harper's Conservative cabinet.

[MrMickeysMom]

4. Reference to this article...

... are based on an article out of Scientific American, which provokes much argument.

That doesn't mean we should stop curtailing what we do an industrialized nations, that simply means that what nations do (awful or not) TO curtail this... that history has not been forecast with certainty.

And, meanwhile... I'm not going to put a loaded barrel of a gun to my face as I kiss my ass "G-Bye"!

[XemaSab]

5. .

[Gregorian]

6. And to think it only took 50,000 days.

And we're going to be using more than ever until who knows when.

The equation is simple. What we're using, and how many are using it. Technology can only solve part of that equation. The other part is personal responsiblity to help decrease world population. It's simply going to have to be a personal effort. No one is going to force anyone to do anything. The sooner we understand this the sooner we can begin the process of altering course.

[Creideiki]

7. I'm an optimist

I know we have all the built-in warming coming. National solutions don't look to be forthcoming (and we'll spike any international solution) so it's time to start pushing things toward the state and local levels.

[Shankapotomus]

8. What happened to the idea that guy had

of pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere? It seems like such a workable compromise. We all could go on polluting the atmosphere as long as we could pull it back out to keep the planet in balance.

[provis99]

9. Canada will be warmer, but also be a desert.

They have been having an alarming number of draughts in the prairie provinces the past few decades, and it's getting worse.

[shimonitanegi]

10. I knew it

when GWB stole the election...
Gore would have taken any humanly possible steps to deal with GWC
Gore wouldn't have wasted 800 billion dollars in the totally unnecessary war.
Gore would have paid off the national debt instead of massive tax cut for the super-rich.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Canada won't be safe either if we give up.

Thanks for the thread, n2doc.

[Go Vols]

12. :(

[MNBrewer]

13. Extinction is a fact of life

We had a pretty good run. Too bad we couldn't overcome our superstitions and other limitations in time.

[loyalsister]

16. I have the same thought sometimes

- with no sarcasm. On the other hand, I have talked with people who admit that it is happening but dispute the cause. I have wondered if there are enough of them that we could come together and focus on adaptation as opposed to trying to stop it?
From an evolutionary perspective, maybe sucking it up and meeting halfway so that a significant number of reasonable people survive wouldn't be a terrible alternative.

It may be the only one we have left at some point. Best to use as much planning time as possible.

[jwirr]

14. Is NE MN close enough to Canada?

[Smilo]

15. It is not only climate change re: weather

.......... but food shortages - which are already happening and will only get worse.

[FredStembottom]

17. About 15 years ago, I had a radical, last ditch idea.....

Putting some type of light blocking contaminant in jet fuels and let every flight spread an upper atmosphere "shade" around the planet.

Are there any ideas like that out there?

(of course, Yellowstone blowing up would do the trick, too...)

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. Who cares? My Big Energy stocks are going through the roof! I can afford the AC bill. n/t

Seems to me that I recall some hippie scientists talking about this like, 40 years ago. But then Ronnie told us that it would all be fine and that sounded a lot better.

"You can't fix stupid."

[JCMach1]

19. Our oceans are in big trouble

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002493580

[chnoutte]

20. The Reich Wingers will latach on to this

as another excuse to do nothing.