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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAtmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return
Dahr Jamail | Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration Has Passed the Point of No Return
Monday, 23 May 2016 00:00
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report
A recent trip up Washington State's Mount Rainier brought home to me how rapidly things are changing, even in the high country.
I first climbed the mountain in 1994, when the main route was a picturesque climb up smooth glaciers. Most of the time crevasses weren't even visible, and snow cover was abundant.
But anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) has been speeding up with each passing year, and in the same area 22 years later, I found large portions of it nearly unrecognizable. We took a somewhat different route than the one I'd climbed in 1994, primarily because the lower portion of that route is now unusable, as the glacier it traversed is so broken up and crevassed as to make it impassable.
It being early season (most of the guide services had yet to begin taking clients up the mountain), I expected much heavier snow cover and the snow bridges over crevasses to be in decent shape. That wasn't the case. After gingerly stepping our way over several sketchy snow bridges, I was grateful we weren't on the 14,411-foot-high northwestern volcano any later in the season than we were. Thankfully, we were able to summit and get back down without incident.
Less than a year and a half earlier, in December 2014, Nature World News reported that ACD was melting Rainier's glaciers at "unprecedented" rates (six times the historic speed). .............(more)
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36133-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-has-passed-the-point-of-no-return
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Sure has. But it took well over a thousand years to do it, not 100. Mankind is in trouble, and the poorest will suffer the first and the most.
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)What do the rich, inbred, idiots plat to do; sell oxygen?
roamer65
(36,739 posts)I am really starting to believe we need a strongly enforced, global one child policy.
No exceptions for anyone.
former9thward
(31,798 posts)Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)I wonder if the Freepers and Trump-trolls enjoy working for Chinese code specialists. The question becomes; are they willingly working with enemies of the USA, to create code, to overburden NSA and FBI agents? They ARE real; and so are online agents of the FBI! Are we having fun yet?
roamer65
(36,739 posts)The more children we bring into this world, the larger our total carbon footprint becomes.
Earth cannot handle 9 billion of us, under our present way of life. Period.
We either get this under control, or nature will control it for us.
former9thward
(31,798 posts)I thought women controlled their own bodies. I guess that concept goes out the window for you. Now the government owns their bodies. How progressive!
roamer65
(36,739 posts)Take it to 800ppm and see what happens. Be my guest...
former9thward
(31,798 posts)But if you want to live in a panic filled world go for it.
roamer65
(36,739 posts)Go for it.
raccoon
(31,088 posts)world citizens.
First world citizens need to reduce their carbon footprint.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)and as the article shows, once again the scientists and other observers are seeing events much much sooner than they had originally predicted.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)...panic while admitting they were wrong and that the temperature is rising at a rate much faster than they had imagined and now that 100-year window has dwindled to a tenth of that initial prediction.
Hang on tight...
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Expectations seem to need recaliberation.
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)LOTS of brown, dead and dying, evergreen trees. Same thing visible on other highways here in Western Washington. Having lived here my entire life - 73 years - I NEVER remember seeing dead and dying evergreens along the roads. Alas, but the WARM future be here NOW. Ms Bigmack
TrappedInUtah
(87 posts)I think we need to genetically engineer a way to wipe out all the pine beetles. Only way to save our forests.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)... That the air is now brown much of the summer in Cascadia and the northern Rockies. Smoke is the norm.
hunter
(38,263 posts)Pine beetles reproduce more frequently as the weather warms and trees stressed by climate change are less able to defend themselves.
Climate Change Sends Beetles Into Overdrive
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/03/climate-change-sends-beetles-overdrive
Bigmack
(8,020 posts)Bigmack
(8,020 posts)The dead and dying trees are fir trees. And I HAVE seen the devastation caused by the pine bark beetles to pine trees up in British Columbia....tens of thousands of acres of dead trees. Ms Bigmack
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)I am glad I have not been back up there, all my memories would be ruined.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
roamer65
(36,739 posts)...when I tell my young nephew in 20 years that I remember when there were polar bears, oceans with fish, plenty of food to eat, etc.
Not looking forward to it.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)and was powerfully struck by Edward G. Robinson's death scene, in a society which encouraged death, so those who volunteered were placed in a bed ( maybe a lab table, I forget) and allowed to watch a wall sized screen of what
"polar bears, oceans with fish, plenty of food to eat, etc. " looked like...in the past.
Blew me away. Still does.
Yet, at the same time, I was taking my school age kids on camping trips and drives all over the state so they could be familiar with the beauty of the place.
Not really thinking that it would be this soon before all of it was seriously threatened.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)Some people stand on the tracks insisting it will stop before it hits them, or refuse to acknowledge the train is even there.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)My city passed an aggressive climate action plan...it is not enough
Auto correct. Oif
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)and only 4 recommendations... Do these low numbers make sense to new readers?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)roamer65
(36,739 posts)They will only discuss it when most coastal cities are submerged and society is on the edge of collapse. That point will be too late.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)but they don't realize that the migration form low lying ground will devastate the higher ground also. Not many will be untouched in the end. Not even the 1%.
Scientific
(314 posts)Because they are all phony "conservatives" - just using the word to cover up their radical exploitation of planet and people. They will choose to stay stupid.
TrappedInUtah
(87 posts)God will provide or something like that.
dembotoz
(16,734 posts)which is at its base a conservative idea....guess they now just want to worship some damn fetus
gordianot
(15,226 posts)So according to Republican logic CO2 is good for plant life. There seems to be a huge difference between using Science and understanding Science. High School Science teachers you have a challenge everywhere.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)It's been estimated that Lyell Glacier will be gone by 2020 at its current rate of retreat, and it's one of the last remnants of the original glaciers that carved Yosemite Valley. I wanted them to have that memory of what we are losing. Someday soon, the memory is all that will be left.
hatrack
(59,436 posts)A small glacier, certainly but well situated to survive, in a deep, east-facing valley, shielded from afternoon sunlight.
It was about 9,000 above sea level, and one that had been there since the park was established in 1986 and for living memory beyond that.
Glad I did it when some ice still remained.
Avalux
(35,015 posts)I don't know if it's because human beings are that short-sighted, in denial, or just don't care. There shouldn't be ANYTHING more important to us than this singular issue, yet when presented with the data, people ignore or mock it. Maybe because the severity of what we're facing is just too horrible?
The Earth is a magnificent place, rare and unique, at least in our known corner of the galaxy. WE are a part of it - what happens to it happens to us too. Yet instead of understanding this and being caretakers, we are inflicting harm and thus bringing about our own destruction in the process.
Jackie Wilson Said
(4,176 posts)roamer65
(36,739 posts)It will be a package deal.