.
.
.
Last summer, for the first time in human history, boats could circumnavigate the North Pole. To the oblivious observer, this might seem like a good thing. Perhaps some green entrepreneur will build resorts on Finland’s Svalbard Islands. However, as we know, there’s a dark side.
Last summer, for the first time in human history, boats could circumnavigate the North Pole. To the oblivious observer, this might seem like a good thing. Perhaps some green entrepreneur will build resorts on Finland’s Svalbard Islands. However, as we know, there’s a dark side.
.
The year 2009 may be the tipping point in human history when society responds to or ignores global warming. The UN climate meeting scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be humanity’s last chance to avoid total chaos. It is too late to avoid some climate chaos.
For historical comparison, we might ask: When did someone on Easter Island first wonder if cutting down all the trees to roll stone statues around was really a good idea? A generation before they annihilated themselves?
.
Scientists on fire
Global climate news during the last year revealed an order-of-magnitude change in the effect of human greenhouse gas emissions. The news is the scale of the impact we are having.
Climate scientists are so concerned by emerging data, that they doubt the reporting process can keep pace with actual impacts, and they’ve scheduled an emergency summit for Copenhagen this month to communicate the climate urgency to world governments.
Alarm bells sounded last summer in the UK, at Exeter University, when climatologist Kevin Anderson, presented evidence to a climate conference that the Kyoto exercise has had zero net effect, and greenhouse gas emissions have increased beyond the bleakest earlier scenarios. For example, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report projected that Arctic summer sea ice would "disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century." Now, data suggest the ice will be gone before 2015, a century ahead of previous estimates.
In 1992, when delegates first drafted the Kyoto outline, net global CO2 emissions were increasing by 0.9% per year. Today, net emissions are increasing over three-times faster. The CO2 upsurge is driven by fossil fuel burning in Europe and North America, China’s coal-powered boom, and industrial growth in the developing world, exacerbated by disappearing forests. Anderson and other scientists concluded that limiting the warming to the previous goal of 2° C is "a lost cause."
Former IPCC head, Bob Watson, warned that the world should prepare for a 4° C rise, at least, which will cause drought, food shortages, sea rise, and more forest loss, decimating species and displacing millions of people. "We’re at the very top end of the worst case scenario," he explains.
Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report to the UK government, dismissed by denialists, now appears too conservative. Sterns says, "I badly underestimated … the damages and risks of climate change." Glacial melt in the Himalayas and Andes has reduced river flow and drinking water for billions of people. Agriculture is suffering from low water in China, Peru, East Africa and the American southwest. U.S. Energy Secretary, physicist Steven Chu, told a U.S. audience in February, "We are on a path that scares me."
At Stanford University, ecologist Christopher Field concludes, "We are looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations."
Katherine Richardson, from Copenhagen University, host of the emergency climate summit this month, says, "This is not a regular scientific conference. This is a deliberate attempt to influence policy." The scientists will present "disturbing" new data about the pace of global warming.
Later, in December, nations will meet in Copenhagen to replace the beleaguered and ineffective Kyoto agreement. This meeting may be humanity’s last chance to forestall runaway global warming and avoid turning planet earth into Easter Island writ large.
more
The year 2009 may be the tipping point in human history when society responds to or ignores global warming. The UN climate meeting scheduled for Copenhagen in December may be humanity’s last chance to avoid total chaos. It is too late to avoid some climate chaos.
For historical comparison, we might ask: When did someone on Easter Island first wonder if cutting down all the trees to roll stone statues around was really a good idea? A generation before they annihilated themselves?
.
Scientists on fire
Global climate news during the last year revealed an order-of-magnitude change in the effect of human greenhouse gas emissions. The news is the scale of the impact we are having.
Climate scientists are so concerned by emerging data, that they doubt the reporting process can keep pace with actual impacts, and they’ve scheduled an emergency summit for Copenhagen this month to communicate the climate urgency to world governments.
Alarm bells sounded last summer in the UK, at Exeter University, when climatologist Kevin Anderson, presented evidence to a climate conference that the Kyoto exercise has had zero net effect, and greenhouse gas emissions have increased beyond the bleakest earlier scenarios. For example, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report projected that Arctic summer sea ice would "disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century." Now, data suggest the ice will be gone before 2015, a century ahead of previous estimates.
In 1992, when delegates first drafted the Kyoto outline, net global CO2 emissions were increasing by 0.9% per year. Today, net emissions are increasing over three-times faster. The CO2 upsurge is driven by fossil fuel burning in Europe and North America, China’s coal-powered boom, and industrial growth in the developing world, exacerbated by disappearing forests. Anderson and other scientists concluded that limiting the warming to the previous goal of 2° C is "a lost cause."
Former IPCC head, Bob Watson, warned that the world should prepare for a 4° C rise, at least, which will cause drought, food shortages, sea rise, and more forest loss, decimating species and displacing millions of people. "We’re at the very top end of the worst case scenario," he explains.
Nicholas Stern’s 2006 report to the UK government, dismissed by denialists, now appears too conservative. Sterns says, "I badly underestimated … the damages and risks of climate change." Glacial melt in the Himalayas and Andes has reduced river flow and drinking water for billions of people. Agriculture is suffering from low water in China, Peru, East Africa and the American southwest. U.S. Energy Secretary, physicist Steven Chu, told a U.S. audience in February, "We are on a path that scares me."
At Stanford University, ecologist Christopher Field concludes, "We are looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations."
Katherine Richardson, from Copenhagen University, host of the emergency climate summit this month, says, "This is not a regular scientific conference. This is a deliberate attempt to influence policy." The scientists will present "disturbing" new data about the pace of global warming.
Later, in December, nations will meet in Copenhagen to replace the beleaguered and ineffective Kyoto agreement. This meeting may be humanity’s last chance to forestall runaway global warming and avoid turning planet earth into Easter Island writ large.
more
3 comments:
"badly underestimated " é a afirmação que, infelizmente, mais se tem ouvido nos últimos tempos e não é só em relação ao clima.
Porque será?
Concordo.
Os números, afinal de contas, atrapalham muita gente.
E não só os portugueses.
Very interesting post. I would love to have the cash for Luxury Yacht Charter
Post a Comment