Sleepwalking To The End Of The World - Independent

[hatrack]

"Future historians, looking back from a much hotter and less hospitable world, are likely to play special attention to the first few weeks of 2005. As they puzzle over how a whole generation could have sleepwalked into disaster - destroying the climate that has allowed human civilisation to flourish over the past 11,000 years - they may well identify the past weeks as the time when the last alarms sounded. Last week, 200 of the world's leading climate scientists - meeting at Tony Blair's request at the Met Office's new headquarters at Exeter - issued the most urgent warning to date that dangerous climate change is taking place, and that time is running out.

EDIT

I am willing to bet there were few in the room who did not sense their children or grandchildren standing invisibly at their shoulders. The conference formally concluded that climate change was "already occurring" and that "in many cases the risks are more serious than previously thought". But the cautious scientific language scarcely does justice to the sense of the meeting. We learned that glaciers are shrinking around the world. Arctic sea ice has lost almost half its thickness in recent decades. Natural disasters are increasing rapidly around the world. Those caused by the weather - such as droughts, storms, and floods - are rising three times faster than those - such as earthquakes - that are not.

We learned that bird populations in the North Sea collapsed last year, after the sand eels on which they feed left its warmer waters - and how the number of scientific papers recording changes in ecosystems due to global warming has escalated from 14 to more than a thousand in five years. Worse, leading scientists warned of catastrophic changes that once they had dismissed as "improbable". The meeting was particularly alarmed by powerful evidence, first reported in The Independent on Sunday last July, that the oceans are slowly turning acid, threatening all marine life (see panel).

Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, presented new evidence that the West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to melt, threatening eventually to raise sea levels by 15ft: 90 per cent of the world's people live near current sea levels. Recalling that the IPCC's last report had called Antarctica "a slumbering giant", he said: "I would say that this is now an awakened giant." Professor Mike Schlesinger, of the University of Illinois, reported that the shutdown of the Gulf Stream, once seen as a "low probability event", was now 45 per cent likely this century, and 70 per cent probable by 2200. If it comes sooner rather than later it will be catastrophic for Britain and northern Europe, giving us a climate like Labrador (which shares our latitude) even as the rest of the world heats up: if it comes later it could be beneficial, moderating the worst of the warming."

EDIT

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=608209

[TwentyFive]

1. And the MSM does NOTHING!

You can't blame Bush. An animal like him can't change his stripes.

But, how about the media? How many stories did they bury that show how we can't go on consuming. Our country rests on an alert media. They are ASLEEP at the wheel! Blame CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS and other major outlets.

[anitar1]

2. They Are Trying To Bring On the *Rapture* n/t

[TwentyFive]

3. Rapture = Destroy our Earth

If that is not the very definition of most evil, then I don't know what is.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. And people point at disaster movies like Day After Tomorrow

and say how laughable it is -- as if it was intended to be a serious scientific work.

DaT was a work of fiction, which combined many diverse disaster scenarios and exaggerated them all for the sake of the story.

Still, the collapse may not happen in a matter of days or weeks, but nonetheless the shut down of the gulf stream is very possible, sooner than later, as the Greenland ice sheet melts into the north Atlantic. Superstorms are entirely possible, and the hyper-cold down drafts shown in the movie have been hypothesized for decades, and would explain the presence of undigested temperate plants found the stomachs of frozen mammoths.

What we don't know about such things vastly outweighs that which we do know.

[ashmanonar]

6. yea, that was the interesting thing about DaT.

it had some ludicrous elements (the badly CGIed wolves, oh noes!) and the whole book-burning thing...

but at it's core, i'd say it was a fairly successful representation, albeit exaggerated in terms of timescale (but not severity) of what could happen to the climate. if anything, it was on the low side of exaggeration...

and people laugh, and then continue to eat, drink, and be merry...driving their cars and flying in planes...as our climate degenerates around us.

lemme put it this way...it's february...and it RAINED in the UP of michigan this past week...WTF is wrong with this scenario?

[yebrent]

5. The Boiling Frog

Daniel Quinn, in his book, 'The Story of B' describes this phenomenon as "The Boiling Frog". If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water (and by no means am I advocating this) it will immediately jump out if it is able to. However, if you place a frog in room temperature water and gradually turn up the heat, the frog will sit there blissfully until it boils to death.

We are gradually making the world uninhabitable for humans. Figuratively, the water around us is getting pretty hot and we are blissfully going about our day. Since the destruction of our environment has happened over several generations and the change is so subtle from year to year, it has little effect on the day to day behavior of the general population. Despite the fact that thousands of experts are sounding the alarm, the effect so far on the average person has not been great enough to cause any major change in their behavior. The death of a family member or even a loss of a job creates a far more visible and emotional impact on an average persons life.

However, if you took a person from 1000 years ago, or even a hundred years ago, and brought them to today they would be astounded at the trouble we have gotten ourselves into. Like the frog that that hops out of the boiling water, they would have a strong memory of how the earth was and could be. The average person has forgotten what a "room temperature" world is like.

[yebrent]

7. I found an excerpt from Daniel Quinn's 'The Boiling Frog' essay

I haven't read it in a while. It is quite fascinating.

http://www.eces.org/articles/000147.php

[midnight armadillo]

9. Daniel Quinn makes me VOMIT

Ishmael the talking gorilla, huh. :puke: The guy's ideas are so stupidly uninformed that I am at a loss for words when his name comes up.

That boiling frog story has been around forever. It's a favorite of the right wing to discuss homosexuality too ("the culture slowly falls apart around us, etc").

[yebrent]

10. I'm sorry you are not feeling well.

Actually, it is a telepathic gorilla, and here is Daniel Quinn's response to this often asked question.

Why did you make Ishmael a gorilla?

...and the response:

The point I'm trying to making in all my work is this: "If we want to survive on this planet, we must listen to what our neighbors in the community of life have to tell us." Thus it made sense for the teacher in Ishmael to be one of those neighbors---a nonhuman. Among those neighbors none is more impressive and authoritative than a gorilla (which is why I chose to make Ishmael a gorilla rather than, say, a parrot or a salmon).


Regarding the co-opting of the the Boiling Frog Analogy. I'm sure Daniel Quinn isn't happy about this. His is vehemently anti-Christian conservative. However, it is an analogy, and a good one at that. Good analogies tend to get used in attempt to make all sorts of arguments.

Regarding homosexuality, Quinn has never addressed it directly, but his is an advocate for the learning and understanding of indigenous cultures. And in my study of indigenous cultures it seems that all different sorts of sexuality exist and most cultures were not limited to only 2 genders. Different genders had different roles in their respective culture, but each was considered an integral part of the whole.

I am curious as to where you specifically think Daniel Quinn is uninformed?

[NNadir]

11. An excellent point.

The boiling frog image is exactly what applies here. Here in my town today, on February 8, it is 50 degrees in New Jersey. People are walking around saying, "What beautiful weather!"

I don't find it beautiful. I find it disturbing.

It is not so much that the climate is changing; it has always done so. Rather it is the speed and extreme instability with which it is happening in a world that is already extremely environmentally stressed from population dynamics. The frog may wake up rather suddenly, and indeed, with sudden awareness and in extreme pain when the flame beneath the pot explodes.

This business with the atmosphere may amount to the most extreme act of violence that the human race has ever committed.

It would be one thing to commit acts of violence for some purpose, no matter how poor that purpose may actually be, but it quite another thing to commit with no real purpose in mind, simply out of laziness, stupidity and sloth.

Sleep walking indeed...

[brainshrub]

27. FYI: The boiling frog is an urban myth.

Look here:

http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.htm

Althought the boiling frog is a myth, the point is still a good one.

[PaulaFarrell]

8. kick n/t

[Dogmudgeon]

12. Even this is too conservative - the process is speeding up

Something is starting to happen that many scientists are noticing, but few have come to grips with yet -- the process of global warming is, itself, speeding up. The new data are grim in their implications, but without more data points, they can't make any definitive statements or issue warnings. It is also probably "too late" to reverse or stop this process, since it appears that Global Warming is now being sustained by non-human processes, an ecological fire that we ourselves kindled.

Up until about 1998, global CO₂ levels were increasing at about 3/10ths of a part per million (PPM) per year. Last year, it was approximately 2 ppm, and that wasn't an isolated jump; the yearly increases are themselves measurably increasing.

The polar areas, especially, are heating up faster than expected. A large amount of the jump in CO₂ is likely from the recent thawing of polar tundra; renewed organic processes in the soil generate large amounts of CO₂, but there is too little vegetation (or free water) in the polar areas to "sink" the carbon. Methane is also a major by-product of the newly increased metabolism of soil microbes, and both these greenhouse gasses -- CO₂ and methane -- trap much more heat during the long polar summers.

If the GHG (Greenhouse Gasses) and global warming speed-up can be verified, climatologists will be on firm footing when they announce that a major ecological disaster is under way. Even with a strongly negative PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) tending to damp down the warming process, these processes are becoming impossible to ignore.

--p!

[ashmanonar]

13. i think that global warming is the least of our problems.

to be perfectly honest; although warming leads to the other problems...

we could be looking at a total polar reversal, throwing the orbit of the earth off. the melting of the icecaps leads to difficulties, bc it throws off the balance of earth's axis...causing a greater wobble and meandering of the axis, and most likely triggering polar reversal (wherein what was north becomes south, and viceversa) and essentially tilting the earth, hard.)

there are further ramifications to all this, but in the strictest sense it causes: CHAOS. global chaos. probably half the cities of the world would be flooded; the tsunami in december would look like child's play. the atmosphere would be utterly changed; the world would heat up quite a bit.

we're in for the ride of our lives, sooner or later...and the bushistas aren't helping any.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. I'm not so sure about the geological stuff myself

There's not a lot of information on things like polar tilt, worldwide geological changes, and such.

Just based on changes in the distribution of ice, a mechanical (as compared to magnetic) polar flip is unlikely. I'm not "armed with numbers," but I do know that the mass of the ice is much, much less than the mass of the Earth. Changes in the polar wobble have been observed since the 1800s, and have been increasing, although the movement is still on the order of meters per year.

We do know that changes in glaciation cause changes in isostasy -- the Earth's crust is slightly elastic, and when the weight on top of it changes, there are geological changes. But they are not thought to be globally destructive.

Events such as the recent tsunami are rare, but to be expected. The Earth experiences seismic movement at about Richter 9 once a decade or so. I've seen no data on whether seismic activity is speeding up overall, but would welcome further discussion on it.

However, your overall point of view on chaos is well-taken. Depending on how far the ice melts, flooding could be a small problem, or a catastrophic one. Astronomers have also noticed -- along with the Sun becoming much more active and unpredictable -- that most of the planets have undergone "global warming" themselves. I believe that it's Uranus that has had the largest such increase, and Pluto is warmer now than it was in 1978 when it was closest to the Sun (it's headed away from the Sun now).

The local part of the galaxy we're moving into is much dustier than the average, so increases in infalling dust may account for the warming. However, this is all rather new and I don't think that any astronomer would feel justified even making hypotheses about what's going on.

As for compounding problems, you're correct about that. If a dramatic change in climate happens during an era in which energy costs rise rapidly, the combination could make for famines (from loss of agriculture) and world-sweeping pandemics (as a secondary effect of widespread starvation and cold).

I am certain that we can surmount these problems -- the linchpin is, of course, whether we will surmount them.

--p!

[ashmanonar]

15. see, this is why i love DU

noone saying "you're fucking wrong, go to hell", no arrogant ass saying "according to such and such crackpot, you're wrong"...just a reasoned and respectful argument. well done!

now, with regards to your post...i agree, that there may not be a mechanical pole reversal (as opposed to magnetic) and i agree that we don't really have long-term estimates on such issues as polar tilt, wobble, and other phenomena.

but i think that when "science" or direct observation fails, it seems that the human unconscious has a great deal of insight on such events...we know there's something wrong, without even knowing what or how it's going to go wrong. it's foolish to just consume resources and continue to do as we please without taking thought for what might happen to our planet if we do. we aren't alone on this world, and it is our duty to look to the health of the planet: a duty we've been shirking for a long time now.

to paraphrase jurassic park: we don't have the power to save (or destroy) the planet. but we do have the power to save ourselves.

[happyslug]

16. As to Global Warming the Big Issue is Greenland and the West Antarctic

Just go to Google and type in "West Antarctic Ice Sheet" or "Greenland Ice Sheet" and you will find a LOT of information on Global Warming and its affects.

The Godzilla of Global warming is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIC). 70% of the world's ice is in the EAST Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIC). This is viewed as stable for it is ABOVE sea level AND within the Antarctic Circle. In fact in most studies on Global Warming the EAST Antarctic Ice Sheet Actually GROWS (Do to increase ice buildup based on increase snow in EAIC, the increase snow driven by the increasing world temperatures caused by Global Warming).

The problem is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIC) while only 10% of the world's fresh water ice is fixed on land located BELOW sea level and as such subject to the effect of the warming of the seas. The Greenland Ice Sheet is also about 10% of the World Fresh water Ice and is located above Sea level BUT BELOW the Arctic Circle. Thus the Greenland Ice Sheet is subject to a complete melt down do to Global Warming. This melt down will increase world wide sea levels about 20 feet but will take about 100 years to take effect.

While the Greenland Ice Sheet is a worry (and if part of it collapses may stop the Gulf Stream) the real concern is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIC) for it can do the same 20 foot increase in sea levels but in a week not a Century. The reason for this is since the WAIC is fixed below sea levels, it could break in moors to the ground and break up and start to "float" on the ocean. Given that the WAIS is one whole Ice Sheet if it breaks up and "floats" it will displace up to 20 feet of Sea water level world wide. If it breaks up (and if it does it will be in February or March when the full effect of the sun is on the Antarctic) you have an increase in sea levels world wide of 20 feet.

Now you will hear people worry about the Arctic Ocean ice. But the Arctic is an Ice Shelfs, i.e. it is floating on water and thus displacing the water the ice will be when melted. Since the ice in the Arctic is already displacing the water the ice will be when melted, the whole Arctic Ice can melt AND HAVE NO EFFECT ON WORLD WIDE SEA LEVELS. Ice SHEETS unlike ice Shelves are FIXED ON THE GROUND and are built up from that point. While the WAIS is fixed BELOW sea level and as such displaces some water, the ice is the WAIS is way more than the water it is displacing.

Thus the real concern is the WAIS, for it can do a lot of damage quickly, followed by the Greenland Ice Sheet for its damage can be done more slowly.

Some cites that may interest you on this subject:
http://www.imaja.com/change/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/articles/bind.html
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/summer98/wr_sum98d.htm
http://www.asoc.org/general/iceshelve.htm
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/096ice_sheet/

[ashmanonar]

17. well, do they have any ideas on how to fix it?

otherwise it'll just make a good moral story for the future when told by the few survivors of some global catastrophe (flooding, or giant ice storms, or earthquakes, or whatever)...

that's the scariest thing...unless we can effectively heal the atmosphere instantly, we're in for trouble whatever we do. we can slow it, by stopping use of fossil fuels and pollutants, but probably not stop it.

[happyslug]

18. Actually they do

Lets look at some of the ways:

1. STOP adding to the problem. i.e. cut down global warming gas production, or at least cut it down i.e. Clinton's plan to tax carbon content of various fuel.

2. Look at carbon sinks and produce such sinks. This is actually more attractive than one may think. The Southern Ocean (The Ocean that flows around Antarctica) keeps most of Antarctica traced elements needed for life (i.e. mostly iron but other trace minerals). The algae in the Atlantic, Northern and Central Pacific and Northern Indian Oceans use all of the trace elements from Africa, Asia Australia and the rest of the land masses BEFORE such trace minerals get to the Southern Parts of both the Pacific and Indians Oceans. Thus there is almost no Algae growth in these regions. Algae fix carbon from the air. One scientists commented give him a ten ton of plant usable iron and he could cause a new ice age (Do to the mass fixing of Carbon by Algae in the South Pacific and South Indian Oceans).

here are some links, the first one goes into details on some of the proposals to "help the Climate":
http://www.chooseclimate.org/cleng/cleng.html

http://www-esd.lbl.gov/CLIMATE/OCEAN/fertilization.html
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/life/dustplankton.htm
http://www.mountwashington.org/transcripts/2004/03/23.php
http://www.esse.ou.edu/classes/geos5510/lecture_notes/Lecture_8.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~cebic/enzymecycles.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~cebic/chelbindintro.html

[ashmanonar]

19. yea.

i didn't really know about the carbon sinks, but the not adding to the problem solution did occur to me.

problem is, not adding to the problem may be a moot point by now...at least what i've seen lately. it would help, but it'd only slow it.

but the thing with carbon sinks may be a viable solution. only problem is, it may have unintended consequences that could be worse than the global meltdown we're currently facing.

maybe inventing time travel so we can go back and kill henry ford. :D

[happyslug]

20. Read about the Madhouse Century

Within a span of 100 years you had increase global warming, which lead to the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Or something that lead to a 20 feet increase in world wide sea levels), followed by a 65 foot DROP in sea level as the last ice Age Started.

All of this appears to happen within 100 years. My Speculation is the West Antarctic ice sheet collapsed which increased sea levels by 20 feet. The World wide ocean circulation system breaks down as the Gulf Stream stops flowing north and heads east and than south. This is caused by the pull caused by water flowing through what is now the West Antarctic. This water flow pushed a huge amount of iron and other trace elements into the Pacific which lead to a sudden drop in temperature as the Algae bloom fixed to much carbon.

The present World wide Ocean circulation system does not restart even as the West Antarctic ice sheet reforms do to growing cold weather. The Gulf Stream continues to flow east and south. It is only when you have increase flows of water from the Mississippi that the Gulf Stream shifts North do to a need to exclude more water than can be shifted out of the Caribbean on an eastward course. That means melting of the North American Ice Sheet (This appears to what happen at the end of the last Ice age, either the North American Ice Sheet started to melt forcing to much water into the Caribbean, or the Gulf Stream shifted on its own northward causing the North American Ice Sheet to melt).

Yes what will happen will be unlike anything we have seen in recorded history.

[ashmanonar]

21. link?

is there some respectable scientific site out there that has this stuff?

[happyslug]

22. Scientific American has several articles on this subject but charges $7.95

So I recommend you go to your local library and look through some of their publications.

Scientific American Web Site:
http://www.sciam.com/

One of Scientific American's articles on this subject:
http://www.sciamdigital.com/browse.cfm?sequencenameCHAR=item2&methodnameCHAR=resource_getitembrowse&interfacenameCHAR=browse.cfm&ISSUEID_CHAR=7935C8F4-2B35-221B-61F1030A5C6B32EF&ARTICLEID_CHAR=79516C74-2B35-221B-67B572E59DFB118C&sc=I100322

[ashmanonar]

23. aha.

thankee.

[jmcgowanjm]

24. We can't even describe what we are seeing

in honor of the native peoples of the north whose lands have
by now been invaded by well-warmed southern species
of insects, plants, and animals that they have no words for
in their languages.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid2063

They have plenty of ways of describing their own wildlife -
some have more than 1,000 words for reindeer - but none
for, say, the robin, which is only now venturing north of
the treeline.

The Inuit are reduced to describing it as "the bird with the
red breast" in their language, Inuktiut, said Sheila Watt-
Cloutier, chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference,
the top elected representative of the people
worldwide.

http://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=2386

Hubbert peak scientists think we'll start running out of
oil before bifurcation at the level of globalwarming.

[midnight armadillo]

25. Wait - acidic oceans?

That report mentions the oceans growing more acidic due to the formation of weak acid with the dissolved CO2.

If we kill the oceans we die. Game over. Anyone have more info on this??

[hatrack]

26. Let me scratch around and see what I can find

Seawater acidification from marine carbon sequestration is not a new idea, but the scale of potential acidification is. There were a couple of reports on this in the last week, and the potential effects are profound. Give me a day or so and let me see what I can find. :hi:

[dogindia]

28. coupled with Peak Oil/total retro political power/total denial

by population that does not realize or want to move from right now comforts or know how to. Very complicated. .

What if you could find no worK?
What if you could not get gas for your car. (notice I put this high on the list)
What if the air was hot and hard to breath?
What if there was no water in the tap?
What if there was no food in the stores?
What if your kids, yourself and beloved pets were hungry?
What if you could not move about?
What if people with guns where stealing everything?
What if all of nature's species were dying as well?

A great plan needs to implemented NOW to create a sustainable future.
There is no time left.

[dogindia]

29. here is the whole text on internet

http://www.earthnow.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=24&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0