U.N. Climate Panel: Only 12 Years Left to Mitigate Climate Catastrophe
The United Nations’ climate panel warns in a new report that humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate climate change or face global catastrophe—with severe droughts, floods, sea level rise and extreme heat set to cause mass displacement and poverty. This is not in any way a so-called a “doom and gloom” prediction; but rather, it is a very real prognosis based on the best scientific modeling by the best scientists living on the face of the earth today. The validity of those models has been shown time and time again by the extreme weather disasters that have been borne out over the first 18 years of this century. To deny this reality and the seriousness of continuing with the status quo “business as usual” way of living so many countries are aspiring in light of this forecast is tantamount to digging our own graves and the graves of billions of today’s children and and future humanity. It’s unconscionable. As we continue to burn fossil fuel which were produced over millions and billions of years, the residuals, including greenhouse gases, soot and other products of petroleum products seem to vanish, and we are consuming in the U.S., record amounts of “stuff” and go on endless exotic trips Henry David Thoreau would have scorned them for doing that.
A small portion of the world’s population continues, in the last two centuries, to almost double the heat barrier surrounding Earth, called its “atmosphere”, enslaving all succeeding generations to an environmental unlike its former brilliant self. While most the pre-industrial revolution atmosphere always had sufficient volumes of heat-trapping gas to keep the average temperature above 0 degrees C., too much of will make the average temperature too high, much higher than can be used for sustainable living.
Earth could very well end up like all the other known planets in the universe – devoid of all forms of life. And we here living in the 21st century have no choice but to accept the entirety of the blame. We must no longer plead ignorance or pretend someone other than ourselves is to blame. The fault lies squarely one we humans who are living today, and of course the way we live.
The landmark report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns “dramatic action” over the next 12 years – beginning immediately = is absolutely imperative for earth’s temperatures at the surface to remain sufficiently moderate and to avoid the possibility of “catastrophic” consequences to human life within just 12 years! The IPCC report concludes that global average temperature (throughout the year) must not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), above and beyond which global catastrophe could unfold, “at an extremely rapid pace, and that ignoring this finding could prove suicidal for most forms or life on the planet.
Every time more carbon dioxide is released back into the earth’s atmosphere – whether it be from burning gasoline in automobiles, from jet fuel combustion in jet airplanes, coal or natural gas burning in power plants, or to use in heating homes, businesses, factories and institutions; or in diesel powered transportation or construction machinery, the earth’s atmosphere captures the radiant heat coming of the surface after the Sun’s rays strike the surface, The carbon dioxide and other “released” greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for decades, centuries or even millennium, strengthening the earth’s atmosphere and keeping what would have otherwise been released to outer space.
Global Warming is a Local, State, National and International Emergency that Will Only Worsen in Time, Not Get Better
Unfortunately, as the volumes of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases that are being released to the atmosphere on a daily basis as a result of human activity (mainly from burning coal, natural gas, oil and jet fuel) continue to accumulate there; and Earth’s remaining green space (forests, prairies and other carbon dioxide (CO2) consuming (sequestering) vegetation) is reduced; and Earth’s oceans, seas, the Great Lakes and numerous other water bodies become evermore warmer and saturated with carbon dioxide (CO2), making them more acidic; the prospect of Earth being as hospitable as for life as it has been in the recent millennia in which humans have inhabited this planet is getting slimmer and slimmer.
Scientific studies have been showing for decades, and now with more and more clarity, that modern day living – particularly by residents in the developed countries of the world, who rely so heavily on burning fossil fuels in their daily living – for energy warmth in winter, and electricity generation and transmission, year-round, for shipping goods and trading, and, moreover, for personal or work related travel, the construction, pavement and land alterations that are done which not only allow for that activity, but promote it, that that kind of living by so many millions and even billions of people, will ultimately lead to grave consequences for our planet.
And with our human population continuing to grow geometrically, coupled with the outright refusal of much of the population, their political leaders, and even the recently elected president of our United States of America, Donald J. Trump, continuing to advocate for the highly resource consumptive “business as usual” lifestyle — many human and other lives have already been lost, and people all over the world have suffered, and many more people and animals living in the future will suffer, or be lost, and many trillions of dollars will be lost as well as a result of climate change related “natural” disasters, and rising sea level, a situation which now is not only unprecedented but becoming increasingly dire and predictable.
It’s not like you can just turn the water faucet off and global warming will stop. As stated in Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe’s comprehensive textbook: “Climate Change – Picture the Science” (2008), it could take centuries and even millennia to reverse it. “even if we act to keep atmospheric concentrations at the same level they are now [atmospheric CO2 concentrations 400 parts per million], the global mean temperature will continue to increase for a few decades as a result of past greenhouse gas emissions [GHGs] and the thermal inertia of the oceans [Water holds heat and releases it much slower than hard surfaces such as cement and asphalt.]”
All we can do now is to slow the pace of global warming by conserving energy obtained either directly or indirectly from burning fossil fuels. Moreover, changing to energy alternatives that don’t add to the rising concentrations of GHGs takes more time and money [but creates more long term jobs], and finding ways to adapt to the changes in the climate and the effects brought about by those changes will also cost money and will hurt the poor and the very young and the more elderly individuals [very young have less body mass to buffer individuals to higher heat; older persons are more susceptible to heat stroke].
“In short, there are no shortcuts to addressing a challenge that is global, pervasive, profound, and long term. Global citizens must grasp the challenge, master its intricacies, and take responsibility, for our own generation, and those to come”.[Jeffrey D. Sachs, New York, 6/16/2008]
Also see “UW-Madison Faculty Challenge DNR Climate Change Revisions”.
The following is from Lee Bergquist of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 22, 2017:
In a shift from the practice of two other state agencies, Wisconsin emergency management officials have released new information on climate change and its implications for the state.
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In a report that it posted online last week, the state Division of Emergency Management devoted extensive attention to climate change and how a warming planet could spur natural disasters such as floods, drought and forest fires.
The report contrasts with the Department of Natural Resources and the state Public Service Commission, which scrubbed mentions of climate change and human-generated greenhouse gases from their websites.
As recently as December, DNR officials removed language from a web page devoted to the Great Lakes that had earlier acknowledged the role humans play in global warming. Officials inserted new wording saying climate change is a matter of scientific debate [Not – true! Truthful scientists will tell you the scientific debate ended years ago. MTN]
The PSC, which regulates electric utilities, eliminated its web page on climate change at some point before May 1, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found recently. The scrubbed information included a link to former Gov. Jim Doyle’s task force report on global warming. The Democratic governor’s report in 2008 recommended that Wisconsin reduce the use of fossil fuels and rely more on renewable sources of power. The measures were never enacted.
In the cases of the DNR and the PSC, the information can still be found on the Wayback Machine, an online archive.
In a new five-year disaster preparedness plan, the Division of Emergency Management cites research such as from the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts. It shows global warming is likely to produce more extreme weather. Examples: more days of 90-degree-plus temperatures and more intense rain events.
Bursts of rainfall, the report said, could lead to natural calamities such as flooding, collapse of dams, sinkholes and lake bluff failures.
While other agencies have removed references to the role of human activities in global warming, officials at the Division of Emergency Management included such a statement.
“Although it is widely accepted by the scientific community that the observed changes in global temperatures are the result of human actions, there is considerable uncertainty about the impacts these changes will ultimately have,” the agency wrote.
The document also acknowledges “some debate about the cause of climate change,” but added that statewide temperatures have increased 1.1 degrees in the past 50 years and that more extreme weather events are likely.
The new planning document was approved in December by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Lori Getter, spokeswoman for the state Division of Emergency Management.
Wisconsin was one of the first states to complete a new plan. As part of the process, FEMA required states to consider potential climate effects, she said.
Big Time Media Blew It Big Time – They Failed to Fact Check Donald Trump’s Denial of Human-caused Global Warming
President-elect Donald Trump’s pre and post U. S. Presidential Election statements describing his unscientific “belief” that global warming is not human-caused is flat wrong and the media should have corrected him. It is a scientifically accepted truism that human activity – especially coal and natural gas (methane) burning to generate electricity, petroleum product burning including automobile gasoline, diesel and jet fuel burning, the latter for use by the U. S.’s military aircraft, commercial airplanes and private jets, and humans having either paved over or replaced billions of acres of land formerly in tropical rain forests, prairies, wilderness, or in other lands containing carbon dioxide sequestering vegetation with greenhouse gas producing uses by humans.industries resulting changes in the climates on all of the Earth’s continents, the rising sea levels, worldwide, due to the measured acceleration of the melting of all the Earth’s glaciers, most notably Greenland’s, massive GreenlandIce Sheet are very wrong and very threatening to our planet. Global warming, which is known to be an inevitable consequence of increased trapping of radiated heat energy at the earth’s surface which originates from the sun, due to the known increase in the volume of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and other human engineered trace gases), primarily caused from excessive burning of fossil fuels over time, and by the paving over of the planet’s land surface, is factually undeniable.
The U. S. mass media (TV, radio, newspapers, social media, other) are most responsible for Trump’s deception filled presidential election victory, which will exacerbate global warming heaviest toll on the children of today, future generations of people and other living things having no choice but to struggle to live on a much more inhospitable planet which is destined to become more and more unlivable as time goes on – because of our uncaring actions of excessive fossil fuel burning today.
People in the U.S. and elsewhere could do so much more than they’re currently doing to stop projects such as the Dakota Pipeline project, and other environmentally disastrous energy, transportation, and natural resource consuming unsustainable projects with countless unintended negative consequences that will unquestionably hurt the living conditions for people and all other life on Earth by simply making more thoughtful decisions in how and where they choose to live, recreate, work, travel, etc.
In particular, it is essential for all to MINIMIZE the burning of oil (fossil fuels) in recreational and other needless travel, especially long distance travel, by jet airplane and daily solo motor vehicle commuter travel. In that way, we all reduce the economic need oil and other fossil fuel extraction and pipeline projects, reducing the eventual burning of the fossil fuels and adding to the already catastrophic volumes of atmospheric greenhouse gases, scientifically established to be warming our planet, melting the earth’s polar ice caps, and virtually all the world’s glaciers, thus causing sea levels to rise, the oceans and the earth’s other water bodies to warm and acidify, killing off an untold number of earth’s species, including significant degradation of earth’s many wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef to say nothing about the countless loss of life and human suffering caused by the increase in extreme weather events including droughts, flooding and severe storms such as have already been transpiring across the globe including the heavy costs borne by our own United States over the past year and right now. The losses already occurring to the world and its people and other life on the planet are beyond measure yet our political representative are doing virtually nothing to stop this terrible tragedy to our planet and its future and those who will have no choice but to call it their home.
Please sign my petition for the U.S. Congress to establish and sufficiently fund federal and state programs that would offer the American public monetary incentives to reduce their unsustainable travel levels. Tell your elected representative to legislative act now before it’s too late! http://www.allthingsenvironmental.com.
Please do not patronize TV networks. Their so called “news” programs, sports coverage, and many other programs are financed heavily from automobile industry commercials, while Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television are funded by the travel industry, heavily promoting airline and long distance travel motorized travel, which contributes huge volumes of greenhouse gas emissions, from jets,automobiles and other fossil fuel powered vehicles, mostly for recreational purposes, leaving a permanent, indelible mark for succeeding generations live with. National Public Radio is funded by the Koch Brothers. They all say they are “neutral” on political issues. But Climate Change is Science. It is continuing and in fact accelerating, regardless if the president-elect believes in it or not. To say otherwise does not comport with the facts.
Either we act now or life as we know it on this planet may soon be history.
“The Sun will never disappear, but the Earth may not have many years…. Remember, Today… Well well well, oh, well”
– John Lennon (9 October 1940 -8 December 1980), musician, peace activist, artist, band leader of rock band “The Beatles” and founder of “The Plastic Ono Band”, humanist, dreamer … murder victim.
Reducing the Current Suicidal Rate of Global Warming and Planning for Adapting to Changing Climates Demands Review of Goals, Principles and Actions by World’s Past Leaders and the Movements and Demonstrations by the People Who Expressed their Demands for Change
Today’s Populations, Businesses and Governments Responsible for Ensuring and Prolonging Earth’s Beauty, Economic Potential, Safety, and Humane Conditions for All It’s People and Animals Ought Not Ignore Leadership, Inspirations, Dreams and Concerted Actions of Millions of People and Leaders Who Lived Before Us, or Are Still Amoung Us, for Help in Music Guidance, Leader
To be continued….
“Only Massive CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, in Every City, Town and Village in the United States, Can Bring About the Abrupt But Imperative Changes in the U. S. Government and People’s Lifestyles Today to Make a Difference Fighting Climate Change”
First and foremost, there must be “POWER TO THE PEOPLE” (Lennon). Then, all the world’s countries must “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” (Lennon).
Then, and only then, do we stand any chance of beating global warming. We must stand by each other, whenever there is trouble, as did John and Yoko in “STAND BY ME” (Ben E King). And as geese do, when they migrate. See “Goose Story”
And, more than anything else, they must CARE. Care for their fellow human beings, be they brown, yellow, gray, tiny, white, red, black, have special needs, in prison, whatever their particular differences might be; and all the world’s animal species, future generations of every living thing, and for themselves, the oceans and the billions of species dependent on it, and the Creator. Earth Day 51 must work to these ends, and succeed. Anything else is selfish and unacceptable.
Global Warming Causing Declines of Fisheries in Lake Tanganyika
The people in the small fishing village along the shore of Lake Tanganyika rely heavily on the small sardines from the lake for their own food and also probably sell them dried in a nearby market. Credit: Andrew S. Cohen/ University of Arizona
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The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing,according to a new report. The lake was becoming warmer at the same time in the 1800s that the abundance of fish began declining and the lake’s algae started decreasing. Large-scale commercial fishing did not begin on Lake Tanganyika until the 1950s.
The decrease in fishery productivity in Lake Tanganyika since the 1950s is a consequence of global warming rather than just overfishing, according to a new report from an international team led by a University of Arizona geoscientist.
The lake was becoming warmer at the same time in the 1800s the abundance of fish began declining, the team found. The lake’s algae — fish food — also started decreasing at that time.
The new finding helps illuminate why the lake’s fisheries are foundering, said study leader Andrew S. Cohen, a UA Distinguished Professor of Geosciences.
“Some people say the problem for the Lake Tanganyika fishery is ‘too many fishing boats,’ but our work shows the decline in fish has been going on since the 19th century,” Cohen said. “We can see this decline in the numbers of fossil fish going down in parallel with the rise in water temperature.”
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