Climate catastrophe roundup

So what's been happening in the Arctic over the past decade?

The Arctic climate has been warmer over the past decade than during any 10-year period in 2,000 years, according to a study by an international research team that adds powerful new evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases have speeded the pace of the planet's recent warming.

The report from an international team of climate scientists concludes that climate change in the Arctic has accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, abruptly reversing a long-term worldwide cooling trend. [...]

In another sign of the drastic effects of global warming on the world's far northern regions, newly released photos of 40 Alaskan glaciers taken by a U.S. Geological Survey scientist show the glaciers are continuing to shrink more rapidly than ever.

Anything else going on up there?

"On a calm day, you can see 20 or more 'seeps' out across this lake," said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze.

"It's essentially pure methane."

Pure methane, gas bubbling up from underwater vents, escaping into northern skies, adds to the global-warming gases accumulating in the atmosphere. And pure methane escaping in the massive amounts known to be locked in the Arctic permafrost and seabed would spell a climate catastrophe.

Man, none of that sounds good.  So I'm sure people are getting more and more concerned, aren't they?

A significant proportion of the population have become more sceptical about climate change and the link with man-made emissions of greenhouse gases despite the fact that the scientific evidence has become stronger.

A survey of public opinion has found that 29 per cent of people believe claims that human activities are changing the climate are exaggerated compared with 15 per cent of respondents to a similar survey carried out in 2003.

Hmm.  But at least the U.S. is taking serious action and not just trying to palm off responsibility on developing nations, since we've contributed three times more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than any other country on the planet—right?

"Let me say bluntly that the tenor of negotiations in the formal U.N. track has been difficult," Mr. Stern told the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. "Developing countries tend to see a problem not of their own making that they are being asked to fix in ways which, they fear, could stifle their ability to lift their standards of living."

Well, ok, but even if we don't make the emissions cuts that are mandatory right now to avert catastrophic climate change, can't we save ourselves with some kind of science miracle down the road?  After all, it worked great for the ozone hole:

This is not the funny kind of irony: Scientists say the chemicals that helped solve the last global environmental crisis -- the hole in the ozone layer -- are making the current one worse.

The chemicals, called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), were introduced widely in the 1990s to replace ozone-depleting gases used in air conditioners, refrigerators and insulating foam.

They worked: The earth's protective shield seems to be recovering.

But researchers say what's good for ozone is bad for climate change. In the atmosphere, these replacement chemicals act like "super" greenhouse gases, with a heat-trapping power that can be 4,470 times that of carbon dioxide.

Now, scientists say, the world must find replacements for the replacements -- or these super-emissions could cancel out other efforts to stop global warming.

So it looks like the best we can hope for is that the zany geoengineering projects we eventually undertake in desperation to try to undo the disaster we've created—like shooting sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere—will at least have amusing side effects.  Like, say, giant swarms of locusts in Washington, D.C.

In a nutshell: we're doomed.

Have a great weekend!

Comments

[Harold M]

I've long thought a combination of preemptive nuclear war and a whimsical experiment with nukes to trigger volcanic eruptions held promise. It's psychotic, and it won't work either, but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. At least we'd be doing something, unlike the cynical, moral vanity, Nader-hugging, gloom and doom people who insist on unreasonable and quite frankly boring remedies. Plus, we'd be able to see it on television.

[John Caruso]

You know, you've got a point there; maybe a little nuclear winter is just what we need to solve this problem. Now we just have to choose a suitable target. Having already mentioned a city, I'm happy to stick to that one, though I do think it would only be right to allow all the non-politicians to leave first.

[NomadUK]

I think you're going to need more than one.

I find myself increasingly unable to care about anything that appears in the news, or even to follow it much. Arguing makes no difference. Writing letters makes no difference. Voting makes no difference. Watching or listening to the idiots on the news makes no difference. Reading blogs makes no difference. All any of it does it depress me.

All I can do, it seems, is try to do the right thing as far as I can, to help those whom I can help, and to forget about the rest of it for the sake of my own sanity, and hope that somehow the overlapped efforts of others doing the same will fill the gaps and do the trick.

Otherwise, yes, we're all doomed.

[john]

I've long thought the global warming "debate" a little odd, if not predictable.

Methane 'seeps' are pretty cool but we need a pithy WWF-style smackdown motto to liven things up. I'm thinking:

Nature vs. Man: This Time It's Personal!

[John Caruso]

I have to say that's pretty much how I feel as well all around, Nomad, though I'm sorry if I've contributed to your sense of futility. My own hope and optimism crested in 2000, when a non-trivial number of people actually seemed to see that the system we've built isn't sustainable...and then it crashed as I watched most of them swear off apostasy forevermore (while proving their sincerity by burning the heretics who refused to come back to the true faith with them). That kind of chance won't come again for decades, and we just don't have that kind of time. And I doubt it's going to get easier to push for progressive change in a world with more drought and famine, huge storms, dwindling fresh water supplies, massive population migrations, riots, resource wars, etc.

john: Nature vs. Man: This Time It's Personal!

I like it. But it's sort of like "Gigantic boulder vs. baby duck: this time it's gravity!", y'know? Possibly amusing to watch, but it's not like there's any suspense about how it's going to turn out.

[Harold M]

That sense of futility has done me and a lot of others a world of good. Why waste time with the pointless conventional efforts? I avoid the "news" too, except as rendered appropriately ridiculous by some bloggers I like. As far as I can tell, it (the "news") has followed the same format for the last thirty years; incrementally more idiotic and delusional, perhaps, but the underlying structure is the same.

Meanwhile, some of the things I think hold promise have gained substantial non-party support. A hell of a lot of people are interested in, and participating in, no-till, small scale, aggregate large scale, mutualistic agricultural practices, in community finance and banking, in appropriate technnology -- all the hippy stuff that's been mocked since the sixties.

I reckon we've been doomed for quite some time already -- since the 1990s. The catastrophic refusal to cope sensibly happened a while back. People got on with their lives and salvaging what they could of their environment and there's enough encouragement to keep them at it.

So, yeah, we are well and truly fucked and, hell yeah, we most surely do have all those overlapped efforts. Maybe, just maybe, that will lessen the impact of what's already underway.

[john]

John C:

Yes, it is exactly as you say. But perhaps the only remaining suspense is how us puny humans respond. This is, of course, the bigger point and why you see fit to write about these things and why folks like me see fit to respond.

Like Dante said, 'Shit, I'm late for work but will be back here soon.'