Guardian UK: On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction

[marmar]

On a planet 4C hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction
There's no 'adaptation' to such steep warming. We must stop pandering to special interests, and try a new, post-Kyoto strategy

Oliver Tickell
The Guardian, Monday August 11 2008


We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.

The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.

Watson's call was supported by the government's former chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, who warned that "if we get to a four-degree rise it is quite possible that we would begin to see a runaway increase". This is a remarkable understatement. The climate system is already experiencing significant feedbacks, notably the summer melting of the Arctic sea ice. The more the ice melts, the more sunshine is absorbed by the sea, and the more the Arctic warms. And as the Arctic warms, the release of billions of tonnes of methane – a greenhouse gas 70 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years – captured under melting permafrost is already under way.

To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth.

But what are we to do? All our policies to date to tackle global warming have been miserable failures. The Kyoto protocol has created a vast carbon market but done little to reduce emissions. The main effect of the EU's emissions trading scheme has been to transfer about €30bn or more from consumers to Europe's biggest polluters, the power companies. The EU and US foray into biofuels has, at huge cost, increased greenhouse gas emissions and created a world food crisis, causing starvation in many poor countries. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/climatechange

[The Traveler]

1. This train has already left the station

It is rolling down hill. It is picking up speed. Rapidly. There are no brakes. Accept it. At this point, all we can do is slow it down a tad ... and we should definitely do that. We should definitely work to stop throwing gas on the fire.

But that action alone will not put out the fire, which will run its course and eventually burn itself out. It is very difficult to predict the end state of this ... freshening of sea water can shut down currents and that might actually trigger an ice age no less deleterious to the human condition.

We must face these facts. 1) We did it to ourselves. 2) There is no stopping it now. 3) If we don't slow this fucker down, there is no way we will survive as a culture because we will have no time to adapt. 4) A whole bunch of people aren't going to survive this.

Western high energy technology civilization is probably living on borrowed time. Its collapse will be directly attributable to the free market ideologies promoted by Milton Friedman, which resists any "distortion" (like environmental regulation) to the free market. Had we followed the direction identified by Jimmy Carter, we might have a chance to avoid this mess. But we didn't. A generation has passed, and the moment of choice has slipped through our fingers.

We either tighten our allegiance to each other as a people, and invest heavily in our future, or we won't have one.

[GliderGuider]

3. I agree with the first half of your post completely

However, before we start pointing fingers at individuals, we should remember that the pathological devotion to growth that has landed us in this predicament predates Friedman and Carter by centuries, if not millennia. Given how recent their influence is, I would say that even if we'd hung Uncle Miltie and canonized Carter we'd still be in this box.

We will have a future, it just won't be the one we'd prefer if given the choice.

[The Traveler]

9. Now you are just being reasonable

and in this case, I won't have it! :evilgrin:

Actually, I am trying to research the relationship between the Chicago school minions and the systematic suppression of information about climate change during the 80s and 90s. So far it has been pretty sleazy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. try Kim Stanley Robinson's trilogy on climate change

he says what you are saying, including the Chicago school reference.

40 Signs of Rain
50 Degrees Below
50 Days and Counting

He posits, intelligently, that the last Ice Age, the Little Dryas, seems to have began in about a 3 year window, due to current stall.

Good read.

[yodermon]

2. if the methane in the tundra gets out we are well & truly fucked. n/t

[GliderGuider]

4. "If"? It's already getting out.

http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2008/05/explosions_of_methane_in_north.html

Methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, has been coming out from the ice like small geysers, according to Sergei Zimov, a long-time Russian scientist who has been doing much of the research in the cold, inhospitable region of northern Russia.

"Sometimes a big explosion happens, because the gas comes out like a bomb," Zimov said. "There are a million lakes like this in northern Siberia." The concern from Zimov and some U.S. scientists is that this thawing of the permafrost could accelerate global warming.

Sergei Zimov's outdoor lab is a large area of tundra and larch forest along the East Siberian Sea. Many of his collegues in Russia are not concerned about global warming, but Zimov's lonely work (28 years worth) has certainly drawn the attention from the U.S. as some of his work has been published in American Science Journals. Today, millions of dollars in grants from the West and from the Russian Science Foundation have turned Zimov's station into a hive of science. Zimov also has been receiving funding for his work through the Soros Foundation-Russia.

Zimov believes that the melting can be slowed, but not stopped. He has reintroduced certain grasses and herbivores which dominated northern Siberian steppes over 10,000 years ago. Zimov believes that steppe terrain inhibits permafrost thaw because it retains less heat than forests and lakes.

[Voice for Peace]

5. how quickly is this change expected?

any links?

[phantom power]

7. Within the next century. Most of us will live through at least part of it.

[XemaSab]

11. .

[Voice for Peace]

12. interesting response, LOL.. thanks.

I suppose every moment of life should never be taken for granted.

[slackmaster]

6. If this is true, I don't see why anyone thinks there is a problem

Sounds like a self-correcting situation to me.

[Voice for Peace]

8. True. Once we're all extinct, the problems go away.

:rofl:

[pscot]

13. They created a wasteland

and called it peace. Of course, it was only the Gauls, that time. The one we're working on will be comprehensive.