With Global Warming Now Spinning Out Of Control, Caused Mainly by World’s Continuing and Growing Reliance on Energy Derived from Burning Earth’s Ancient Stores of Fossil Fuel
Fossil fuel comes in many form and has many, many uses. The biggest problem impacting the climate occurs when it (coal, natural gas and oil or refined petroleum/petroleum products) in heating plants, homes and businesses, and in commercial and recreational transportation (cars, trucks, buses, airplanes and jets, trains and ships) as well as in road building, excavation and other means of development, including pipeline construction for moving water, oil, and other liquids; and expanding conducting trade with distant countries.
The residuals from these activities – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, other invisible gases – which are “freely” discharged or emitted to the atmosphere, are now known to be accumulating or building up in the atmosphere and oceans to scientifically unquestionable dangerous levels, so much so that calling it a worldwide problem of epic proportions, or a threat to humankind’s existence comparable to a worldwide nuclear catastrophe, has become to many people as no exaggeration anymore.
Every passing day results in a new record volume of the greenhouse “heat-trapping” gases, all of which are continuing to accumulate to higher volume levels (concentrfations), way much faster than nature can transform back into fossil fuels.
Seven things every human ought know (and not forget!) about how we are causing the climate to change and what it means for Earth’s future.
Arctic Council Affirms Need for International Action Against Climate Change
Foreign ministers from Arctic nations meeting this week in Fairbanks, Alaska, concluded their meeting “noting the entry into force of the Paris agreement on climate change and its implementation, and reiterating the need for global action to reduce both long-lived greenhouse gases and short-lived climate pollutants.”
Called the Fairbanks Declaration, the document says the leaders signed it “recognizing that activities taking place outside the Arctic region, including activities occurring in Arctic states, are the main contributors to climate change effects and pollution in the Arctic, and underlining the need for action at all levels”
The U.S.’ Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed the document, which affirms the need for international action against climate change. In addition to the U.S. and Sweden, the other council nations are Russia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland. The council also includes six indigenous groups and formal observers from non-Arctic countries.
No part of the world is warming faster than the Arctic.
Summer sea ice regularly shrinks to record lows, coastlines are eroding and wildfires are getting worse. Even the frozen tundra, a critical natural storage tank for carbon emissions, is no longer so frozen. Scientists reported this week that it is warming so rapidly that it now is emitting more carbon than it captures.
Sea ice extent has shrunk to record lows this year and will likely continue to do so, a March 2017 NASA report shows.
Doomsday Clock on Auto Pilot?
The events causing the annihilation human and all other forms of life on Earth [the Apocalypse] may have already been set in motion.
Global sea level rise could happen at nearly twice the rate previously projected by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even under the best scenario, according to a new report from the Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program (AMAP).
References
Thousands Gather in DC to Save World’s Climate
Many thousands of humans marching to save Earth’s climate from too much fossil fuel burning.
Outdoor Report for March 9, 2017, By the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: “Early Ice-out and Early Wildfire Season
While Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans in the state Legislature, the U.S. Congress, republican governors other U.S. states, plus the president himself, continue to not blame human activities fueled by fossil fuel burning as the cause of the currently accelerating rates of global temperature rises, the record high rates of sea level rise, the acidifying of the planet’s oceans, along with the famine refuge causing droughts in Africa and the Middle East, and the historic melting of ice and snow at the poles and the relentlessly melting of mountainous glaciers, caused mostly by:
excavating, processing and transporting coal, natural gas, auto, truck and ship motor fuels, jet fuel, especially fuels derived from processing and delivering Alberta, Canada, tar sands) and many other human activities that result in large scale emissions of greenhouse gas emissions: cement making, paving forests, meat production, poor waste disposal practices, sports competitions which require long distance travel by teams and fans and awards ceremonies, conventions and conferences that require people to travel long distances, and buying products from long distance markets (requiring distance travel (i.e., not buying local, … the continuing of what the global warming scientists determined to be the “business as usual” practices (above) is slowly but increasing getting worse and worse – with no end in site. Today’s children and those yet to be born will curse us all for this. Mark my words.
March 9, 2017 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ Outdoor Report (partial) follows:
Early ice-out and early wildfire season:
Snow is now gone from most areas of the state, with the exception of the far north, where a few inches remain in wooded areas. Very strong winds this week have taken ice out of many lakes in the south, including Monona and Mendota, which tied its record for second earliest opening — nearly a month earlier than average.
The high winds and loss of snow cover have also led to an early spring wildfire season, with more than 30 acres burning this week, including one fire near Eau Claire that resulted in the evacuation of some homes, but was contained before it burned any structures….
Authors of New UW and UCLA Collaborative Study: Global Warming To Increase Storm Intensity And Rain Volume
(Above) A section of Wisconsin Highway 13 is washed out after heavy rains, south of Highbridge in Ashland, Wis., on July 12. Jeff Peters / AP
Climate scientists have been telling us for awhile now in Wisconsin to get ready for warmer, wetter weather. As things heat up, more water is evaporated into the atmosphere, more energy is added to the system, and you get more rain. Last month, the author’s of a new collaborative study involving climatologists at UCLA and mathematicians at the University of Wisconsin said, in a radio interview with WORT-FM’s Brian standing, who is the host of the station’s Monday morning 8 O’Clock Buzz show, that Wisconsin, as well most other regions of the U.S., can expect much more rain as the atmosphere continues to warm directly resulting from rising greenhouse gas (GHGs) accumulations in the atmosphere over time, which are scientifically known to result from heavier rainfalls and more of them in the coming years, linked to the continuing buildup of human activity generated GHGs (from coal and natural gas burning in power plants, homes, businesses, etc,; and petroleum product burning in automobiles, trucks, jet liners, etc.) in our atmosphere under today’s “business as usual” economic forecast.
Prior to this study, scientists had not predicted the actual accumulation of rain in predicted future storms, measuring instead the increasing strength of storms under continuing global warming with rising GHG accumulations in the atmosphere. Under this study, the authors said a 100-year flood in Wisconsin and most other regions of the U.S. would be more likely to occur in 50 years or less years unless we change our ways, and that the 100-year flood would have a significantly greater volume of total rainfall accumulation than previous years, which has important implications for infrastructure capacities and locating residential, community and business developments.
Brian Standing spoke on February 27, 2017, with Professor David Neelin of the University of California Los Angeles Department of Atmospheric Science and with Professor Sam Stechmann at the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Department of Mathematics who collaborated on the study.
Hear interview and donate?) at WORT-FM.org.
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