Yes, I'm scared. Not so much for me but for my two young sons. After understanding the size of the problem, it's hard not to be pessimistic and downright depressed. But the only alternative to submission is working as hard as we can to reduce our carbon emissions. The question is whether we can mobilize enough change before socio-politico-economic collapse secondary to climate change, or the effects of gw itself kill us. A foundational question to this line of reasoning is "how fast are we moving towards doom?"--something nobody knows, but we are certainly rushing towards it at an ever faster pace.
There are a lot of people in the US who still simply don't understand the gravity of the issue. I believe that there is an element of fear to understanding gw, just by virtue of the size of the problem. this comprehension is the first step for many people to come on board to supporting the solutions. It has been uplifting to see more people getting involved over the past year.
Maybe you're right to have such an optimistic perspective--it keeps people's heads in a problem solving mode (if not simply sane) in the face of impending doom. However, i think it makes the solution efforts hollow not to be straight and open about the effects we're seeing and the modeled predictions. Without people understanding the problem, there won't be sufficient collective motivation (or resources) devoted to solving it.
I read a quote somewhere that talk about a problem should be 90% solutions and only 10% problem, not the other way around.
One difficulty with your thoughts is the positive feedback cycles we've seen increase recently, primarily the albedo effect and the melting permafrost and resulting release of methane. Greenland ice melt has increased exponentially and there is no check on the further melting at a faster and faster rate, even if CO2 stays at 380 ppm. This isn't linear--not much of climate change is linear. Indeed, human CO2 production is rising exponentially--the equivalent of one 1,000 megawatt coal-burning power plant is going on line in China each week.
it doesn't much matter if the CO2 we produce is absorbed by natural processes in 100 years if we're not around to see it. Even if we were to transition to your theoretical zero-carbon emitting energy source by 2015 (a very short time-frame given the stage of development of zero-carbon energy as well as our reliance on fossil fuels in every aspect of our economy), the American breadbasket will dry up and blow away, much like what is happening in Australia right now, long before a natural correction of the carbon cycle.
Not much science out there to back up your perspective.
I'm wondering where you're from and why you have the perspective you do. If you aren't getting it from a scientific source, why are you propogating it?
We've already burned enough oil to change the world dramatically, we have yet to see the full effects of 380 ppm CO2, and I believe it is going to get really ugly in many if not all places around the world within 20 years.
I wish I could share your optimism about GW and coal not being a problem.
I hope you'll read www.realclimate.org, a blog run by climatologists on the science of GW. I find it informative, well referenced, and professional in approach. If you have a similar reference(s) for me, I'd love to gain a little of your optimism.
Then we need more growing trees to offset the 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 we've created. Whatever the amount of CO2 humans are producing, 6 or 9-figure, it is too much for the planet's carbon-absorption systems to process.
You seem to be arguing that it doesn't matter that we put as much CO2 into the air as we do, that the 6 or 9 digit CO2 emissions figure is consistent with the planet's scale, so we shouldn't be concerned about it.
Should I not be concerned that our oceans are 0.1 pH units more acidic due to this CO2 rise? Or that 440 million board-feet of pine trees in North America were killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle last year because winter temperatures were insufficiently cold to keep the bug in check? Or that the waterways in my local area have, on average, 50% less water in them than they should have and that we've had drought for 5 of the last 6 years?
People's voices are becoming louder and more shrill (what you call "fearmongering") as the worsening reality of our situation is being pooh-poohed by others, especially those in power. The situation is only going to get worse. What sort of change will it take for you to be afraid?
You assume that there is an overall increase in the number of trees worldwide. Sadly, the opposite is happening. Rainforests, the densest areas of trees around the world, are disappearing rapidly. Forests act as carbon sinks, as you state, taking carbon out of the atmosphere and holding it in their structure. When trees burn or otherwise decay, the carbon is released back into the environment. The overall loss of trees around the world has to be calculated into the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere, not absorbed from it. This is another reason why the Earth is out of balance, there is a much greater release of carbon than absorption, both directly from human sources (coal, oil, gas) and indirectly from human activity (deforestation, positive feedback cycles).
Greenland and Antarctic ice, when it melts at the rate it is melting, practically speaking, is gone forever. The melting enlargens crevasses, increases the disintegration of the ice, and lubricates the ice sheet over the ground it sits on.
One study that global warming deniers point to in their claims that gw doesn't exist is one published in Science, i believe, that shows that there has been an increase in precipitation on the Greenland ice sheet which is increasing the thickness of the sheet itself.
This argument falls apart when this particular study is examined as part of the overall climate picture. All of the climate prediction computer modeling predicts short-term increases in precipitation in some geographical areas. The Greenland ice sheet is breaking up at the edges. The sheet is sliding towards the sea at twice the rate it was 10 years ago. The exponential increase in the rate of ice melt is creating much more runoff than the increase in the thickness of the sheet due to increased snowfall on top of it.
There may very well be increased evaporation secondary to increased average temperatures, but this won't simpy counterbalance the loss of ice. It would be one more symptom of the larger problem--more water vapor in the atmosphere means more greenhouse effect (water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas), causing further warming from solar radiation, creating more ice melt.
Instead of counterbalance, what we have is a positive feedback cycle, an exacerbation of the ice melt which creates further warming. This type of positve feedback is happening in other ways, too, such as the albedo effect: snow and ice reflect 90% of solar radiation back out into the atmosphere, whereas liquid water absorbs 90% of that energy. As more ice melts, there is less white ice to reflect the sun, and more dark water (and exposed rock/soil) to absorb it. This further melts the ice and further creates more water and further warms the oceans. Another example of a positive feedback cycle happening is the permafrost melting in the arctic areas like Alaska and scandinavia: as temperatures rise, ground that has been frozen since the last ice age, some 10,000 years, is melting. The resulting organic matter in the ground is releasing ever increasing amounts of methane. methane is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2. So the result is more warming from solar radiation, more permafrost melting, and so on.
In my readings I have yet to come across a negative feedback cycle or any substantial counterbalancing going on.
The West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are land based and above sea level. The amount of water locked in the Greenland ice sheet is enough to raise global sea levels 7 meters (23 feet), West Antarctic 5 meters (16.4 feet). The rate of melting is what is at issue here--how fast is sea level rising?
In '95, 90 cubic kilomters of water came off of Greenland; the same measurements in 2005 showed 220 cubic kilomters. Between 1994 and 1996, the rate of melting increased 250% (Nature, 9/20/2006)--current rate of ice loss is at 248 cubic kilomters/year. Additionally, the rate at which the ice sheet is moving towards the sea has doubled in the past 10 years (Rignot and Kanagaratnam, Science 2/17/2006). (Further backup science: Chen et al, Science 8/25/2006).
At the current rate of melting these ice sheets won't disappear for another 1,500+ years from now. The problem is that this melting is happening at a rate that is increasing exponentially. Nobody knows the calculus of the current rate, and what it means for how fast sea level will rise. This is especially true in light of the fact that humans pump some 6 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.
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Yes, I'm scared. Not so much for me but for my two young sons. After understanding the size of the problem, it's hard not to be pessimistic and downright depressed. But the only alternative to submission is working as hard as we can to reduce our carbon emissions. The question is whether we can mobilize enough change before socio-politico-economic collapse secondary to climate change, or the effects of gw itself kill us. A foundational question to this line of reasoning is "how fast are we moving towards doom?"--something nobody knows, but we are certainly rushing towards it at an ever faster pace.
There are a lot of people in the US who still simply don't understand the gravity of the issue. I believe that there is an element of fear to understanding gw, just by virtue of the size of the problem. this comprehension is the first step for many people to come on board to supporting the solutions. It has been uplifting to see more people getting involved over the past year.
Maybe you're right to have such an optimistic perspective--it keeps people's heads in a problem solving mode (if not simply sane) in the face of impending doom. However, i think it makes the solution efforts hollow not to be straight and open about the effects we're seeing and the modeled predictions. Without people understanding the problem, there won't be sufficient collective motivation (or resources) devoted to solving it.
I read a quote somewhere that talk about a problem should be 90% solutions and only 10% problem, not the other way around.
One difficulty with your thoughts is the positive feedback cycles we've seen increase recently, primarily the albedo effect and the melting permafrost and resulting release of methane. Greenland ice melt has increased exponentially and there is no check on the further melting at a faster and faster rate, even if CO2 stays at 380 ppm. This isn't linear--not much of climate change is linear. Indeed, human CO2 production is rising exponentially--the equivalent of one 1,000 megawatt coal-burning power plant is going on line in China each week.
it doesn't much matter if the CO2 we produce is absorbed by natural processes in 100 years if we're not around to see it. Even if we were to transition to your theoretical zero-carbon emitting energy source by 2015 (a very short time-frame given the stage of development of zero-carbon energy as well as our reliance on fossil fuels in every aspect of our economy), the American breadbasket will dry up and blow away, much like what is happening in Australia right now, long before a natural correction of the carbon cycle.
Not much science out there to back up your perspective.
I'm wondering where you're from and why you have the perspective you do. If you aren't getting it from a scientific source, why are you propogating it?
We've already burned enough oil to change the world dramatically, we have yet to see the full effects of 380 ppm CO2, and I believe it is going to get really ugly in many if not all places around the world within 20 years.
I wish I could share your optimism about GW and coal not being a problem.
I hope you'll read www.realclimate.org, a blog run by climatologists on the science of GW. I find it informative, well referenced, and professional in approach. If you have a similar reference(s) for me, I'd love to gain a little of your optimism.
Good luck.
Then we need more growing trees to offset the 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 we've created. Whatever the amount of CO2 humans are producing, 6 or 9-figure, it is too much for the planet's carbon-absorption systems to process.
You seem to be arguing that it doesn't matter that we put as much CO2 into the air as we do, that the 6 or 9 digit CO2 emissions figure is consistent with the planet's scale, so we shouldn't be concerned about it.
Should I not be concerned that our oceans are 0.1 pH units more acidic due to this CO2 rise? Or that 440 million board-feet of pine trees in North America were killed by the Mountain Pine Beetle last year because winter temperatures were insufficiently cold to keep the bug in check? Or that the waterways in my local area have, on average, 50% less water in them than they should have and that we've had drought for 5 of the last 6 years?
People's voices are becoming louder and more shrill (what you call "fearmongering") as the worsening reality of our situation is being pooh-poohed by others, especially those in power. The situation is only going to get worse. What sort of change will it take for you to be afraid?
You assume that there is an overall increase in the number of trees worldwide. Sadly, the opposite is happening. Rainforests, the densest areas of trees around the world, are disappearing rapidly. Forests act as carbon sinks, as you state, taking carbon out of the atmosphere and holding it in their structure. When trees burn or otherwise decay, the carbon is released back into the environment. The overall loss of trees around the world has to be calculated into the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere, not absorbed from it. This is another reason why the Earth is out of balance, there is a much greater release of carbon than absorption, both directly from human sources (coal, oil, gas) and indirectly from human activity (deforestation, positive feedback cycles).
Greenland and Antarctic ice, when it melts at the rate it is melting, practically speaking, is gone forever. The melting enlargens crevasses, increases the disintegration of the ice, and lubricates the ice sheet over the ground it sits on.
One study that global warming deniers point to in their claims that gw doesn't exist is one published in Science, i believe, that shows that there has been an increase in precipitation on the Greenland ice sheet which is increasing the thickness of the sheet itself.
This argument falls apart when this particular study is examined as part of the overall climate picture. All of the climate prediction computer modeling predicts short-term increases in precipitation in some geographical areas. The Greenland ice sheet is breaking up at the edges. The sheet is sliding towards the sea at twice the rate it was 10 years ago. The exponential increase in the rate of ice melt is creating much more runoff than the increase in the thickness of the sheet due to increased snowfall on top of it.
There may very well be increased evaporation secondary to increased average temperatures, but this won't simpy counterbalance the loss of ice. It would be one more symptom of the larger problem--more water vapor in the atmosphere means more greenhouse effect (water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas), causing further warming from solar radiation, creating more ice melt.
Instead of counterbalance, what we have is a positive feedback cycle, an exacerbation of the ice melt which creates further warming. This type of positve feedback is happening in other ways, too, such as the albedo effect: snow and ice reflect 90% of solar radiation back out into the atmosphere, whereas liquid water absorbs 90% of that energy. As more ice melts, there is less white ice to reflect the sun, and more dark water (and exposed rock/soil) to absorb it. This further melts the ice and further creates more water and further warms the oceans. Another example of a positive feedback cycle happening is the permafrost melting in the arctic areas like Alaska and scandinavia: as temperatures rise, ground that has been frozen since the last ice age, some 10,000 years, is melting. The resulting organic matter in the ground is releasing ever increasing amounts of methane. methane is a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2. So the result is more warming from solar radiation, more permafrost melting, and so on.
In my readings I have yet to come across a negative feedback cycle or any substantial counterbalancing going on.
The West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are land based and above sea level. The amount of water locked in the Greenland ice sheet is enough to raise global sea levels 7 meters (23 feet), West Antarctic 5 meters (16.4 feet). The rate of melting is what is at issue here--how fast is sea level rising?
In '95, 90 cubic kilomters of water came off of Greenland; the same measurements in 2005 showed 220 cubic kilomters. Between 1994 and 1996, the rate of melting increased 250% (Nature, 9/20/2006)--current rate of ice loss is at 248 cubic kilomters/year. Additionally, the rate at which the ice sheet is moving towards the sea has doubled in the past 10 years (Rignot and Kanagaratnam, Science 2/17/2006). (Further backup science: Chen et al, Science 8/25/2006).
At the current rate of melting these ice sheets won't disappear for another 1,500+ years from now. The problem is that this melting is happening at a rate that is increasing exponentially. Nobody knows the calculus of the current rate, and what it means for how fast sea level will rise. This is especially true in light of the fact that humans pump some 6 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.
This isn't fearmongering, this is science.