Alder Stone Fuller: Why large-scale climate change (probably) cannot be stopped

[GliderGuider]

Fuller describes himself as "an independent, college-level educator offering interesting, important, accessible & awe-inspiring ideas in science & mathematics not available anywhere else in such integrated ways to people & communities." He has a PhD in Ecology & Biological Evolution, an MA in Probability Theory & Statistics, another MA in Biological Systematics, and a BS in Invertebrate Biology and Entomology.

Why large-scale climate change (probably) cannot be stopped

Introduction : A questionable assumption

The large majority of people addressing the issue of climate change – at least those not still in denial about it, including scientists, activists and policy makers – still assert that we can stop global heating – and thus, large-scale climate change – by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Bill McKibben’s organization 350.org is a notable example.

But is that a fact supported by science or an unsupported assumption? To my knowledge, no one has justified that assertion with any argument based in science, especially the systems sciences, with any data or any model. It appears to be an assumption, an article of faith.

Even if humans stop producing CO2 today – highly unlikely given current economic and political realities – Earths’ climate system will still shift to a new hotter state, reminiscent of the state that existed 55 million years ago because:

• Earth’s thermostat cannot be set anywhere we desire because the climate system is characterized by a limited number of discrete (attractor) states, and the climate will not stabilize between them; once a critical threshold (tipping point) for the system has been passed, the system will shift to a new state.
  
• CO2 residence time in the atmosphere insure continued global heating for at least a century, probably longer, which will continue to drive positive feedback processes that will further heat Earth, pushing the climate system to a new state;
  
• Ocean heating lag times insure that we will continue to heat even after greenhouse gases stabilize;
  
• Multiple positive feedbacks are accelerating our shift towards a new hotter state of the climate system.

Fuller addresses the following 11 topics with evidence that invalidates the hopes of people like Bill McKibben, and supports the position of scientists like James Lovelock:

1 – Climate states : Why we can not set Earth’s thermostat anywhere we want
2 – Climate changes abruptly at tipping points
4 – CO2 residence time : Even with zero emissions now, we will still heat
5 – Methane : A sleeping giant is waking up
6 – Lag time : Even after the gases stabilize, we will continue to heat
7 - Melting ice : Why the poles are heating 2 – 3X faster than elsewhere
8 – Heating oceans & unhappy algae
9 – Forests are switching from sinks to sources
10 – Too few negative feedback processes to offset positive feedbacks
11 – Aerosols & global dimming : Are we already hotter than we think?

IMO it's an excellent article for the general reader. All of the information has been addressed here through the diligent efforts of our members, but it sure is sobering to see it all drawn together like this.

[GliderGuider]

We appear to be closing out an era in the human tenure of this planet.

The climate's not coming back, the oil's not coming back, the oceans aren't coming back, the topsoil's not coming back, the fossil aquifers aren't coming back. We've pretty much eaten the planet. What's for desert (sic)?

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Soon we're all gonna be sic (sic)?

:shrug:

[GliderGuider]

1. Self-delete