to control global warming, if we haven’t already:
CO2 ‘highest for 650,000 years’
By Richard Black
Environment Correspondent, BBC News websiteCurrent levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years.
That is the conclusion of new European studies looking at ice taken from 3km below the surface of Antarctica.
The scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional.
Let that sink in for a moment. Highest levels of greenhouse gases in 650 THOUSAND YEARS. And of that increase, the vast majority of it has occurred in the last 150 years, or approximately since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Not surprisingly that same 150 year time period shows up again in describing this phenomenon:
LONDON: Ocean levels are rising twice as fast as they were 150 years ago, providing further evidence of man-made global warming.
A study has shown that world sea levels are rising at a rate of 2mm per year; double the speed at which levels rose for 5000 years before the start of the industrial age.
The switch occurred after the mid-19th century, when factories increased their use of coal and later oil, pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
I know that for most of us who read at blogs like this one, or who take the trouble to educate ourselves on environmental issues such as global climate change, this is hardly surprising news. But these two new studies, conducted independently of each other, add just more nails to the coffin that will be our children’s and grandchildren’s ecological nightmare if we don’t start doing something about it, and soon.
Sadly, Republicans, who used to share our concerns, have abandoned environmental protections because they interfere with the goals of their Pro-Big Business patrons, and in particular, Big Oil. Daily, we witness the effect of our government’s failure to take decisive action to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, not only effects to the physical environment (e.g., an increased frequency and intensity of storms and hurricanes, a longer and more violent tornado season, greater seasonal flooding, increased frequency and duration of droughts, etc.) but also in the economic sphere.
In addition to rising energy prices, the government’s failure to regulate higher gas mileage and emissions standards for the automotive industry has led, predictably enough, to the loss of jobs and production in North America by American auto makers, now that their fuel inefficient vehicles are no longer in demand:
General Motors Corp. announced plans Monday to cut 30,000 manufacturing jobs and close nine North American assembly, stamping and powertrain facilities by 2008 as part of an effort to get production in line with demand.
Rick Wagoner, chairman and CEO of the world’s largest automaker, announced the closures during a speech to employees from GM’s Detroit headquarters before the financial markets opened. Wagoner said GM also will close three service and parts operations facilities.
. . . GM has been crippled by high labor, pension, health care and materials costs as well as by sagging demand for sport utility vehicles, its longtime cash cows, and by bloated plant capacity. Its market share has been eroded by competition from Asian automakers led by Toyota Motor Corp. GM lost nearly $4 billion in the first nine months of this year.
Generally, government can take a longer view than private businesses in regard to such issues, because they are not slaves to the quarterly profit statement, nor subject to Market’s relentless focus on stock prices. That is, they can take a longer view when they, themselves, are not under the control of these same multinational corporations that are unable or incapable of strategic planning.
This is not merely an issue for the Republican Party; the corruption of our political processes and institutions, and the desire to appease the interests of big business, runs just as deep among the Democrats. True, the Republicans have taken governmental subservience to the “money power” to a new level, but the rise to prominence of the pro-business/pro-free trade Democratic Leadership Council in the 80’s and 90’s was just as problemmatic. Politicians from both sides of the aisle began to rely on the campaign contributions from business groups and lobbyists, and ignore the growing warning signs that “business as usual” was the problem, locally and globally.
In the meantime, with Republican control of Congress, the Presidency, the Judiciary, K Street and the Major Corporate Media, no one is even discussing global warming and it’s looming threat to our future, much less proposing any solutions, despite it’s overriding significance to the health and welfare of all humanity. Indeed, recently I saw this story which can serve, as well as any right now, as an icon for the current state of thinking among our political elites:
WASHINGTON – Taxing hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars and billing drivers for miles driven are among the approaches being suggested to avert a shortfall in money to maintain the nation’s highways.
Less than four months after President Bush signed a six-year, $286.4 billion highway and public transit act, a report commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the federal Highway Trust Fund is running out of money and Congress needs to think about new revenue sources.
Yes, taxing hybrid vehicles because they use less gasoline. What an incredibly stupid way to discourage the transition to these lower emission vehicles in this era of increasingly higher energy costs. How incredibly short sighted and ignorant. One can you hear Nero’s fiddle already tuning up in the background.
When it comes to the destruction of our global life support, our rulers present us with the lies they know will most effectively soothe their constituencies. The Bush oil mafia either just denies any significant problem or hires propaganda quislings like the Greening Earth Society to tell us that warming will be a Good Thing. The Voices of Reason and Moderation pretend that having more hybrids will fix everything right up.
That way, nobody has to worry or pay much attention. If they did they’d quickly see that our species, our descendents, are going to pay for our greed and comfort-seeking big time, no matter what we do. That our extinction is the most probable future. That to have a shot at saving ourselves would require drastic change, not some little tweaks like hybrids and fluorescent bulbs.
Saving ourselves would require making the survival of the global life support system our primary standard for every aspect of our lives. We would have to pay whatever it takes to convert quickly to renewable power. We would have to reverse our current procedure of deciding what we want and then developing the energy infrastructure to support it. For example, we may have to abandon the idea of personal transportation and cheap plane tickets in favor of a massively redeveloped rail/mass transit system. This, in turn, would require radical change in our economic systems to make sure the pain falls, like the rain, equally on the richest and the poorest.
I don’t think there’s any prospect that the “advanced” societies have anywhere near the brains or understanding or humility to accomplish even a small fraction of what needs to be done. Our species’ long-term survival will have to depend on the skills of those in “marginal” cultures who have known better all along.
The scientists do. The problem is that the businessmen – thanks to pleasant lies like Objectivism – are convinced that they know better than the scientists. After all, the only thing that really matters is money, right?
Feynman’s infamous quote appears to be very appropriate here:
He was speaking about the Challenger disaster, but his words appear to apply to so many aspects of modern business. Most corporations are focused on stringing investors along with good short-term results and pleasant lies about long-term viability.
As any engineer, scientist, or artist knows, this is a guaranteed route to long-term disaster. Especially when the lies are also being used to fool the businessmen into believing that they don’t need to think about the long term.
And hey, guess what? It’s the new Democratic Electoral Strategy too!
To continue on this course, the opponents of global protections believe either that science is fabricating and/or overstating the problem or that technology will ultimately produce a viable solution. With these in mind, they can continue the pursuit of profit without any great concern. Of course the former ignores substantial documentation of rising temperatures and the latter puts far too much faith in our ability to handle any problem that may arise.
a submerged New Orleans in fifty years?
Only time–and no investment in the future–will tell.
I’ve logged on for the first time at 1030 pacific time, this thread is maybe four threads down on the front page, and there are four comments. There are about 25 for the top thread, on Dkos.
Is what happens or doesn’t at Dkos or even here more important than the end of the world as we know it? At temperature rise of 25% over that of any time since a point at which our species still had nearly a half million years to evolve before we could be called almost human, gee, that has to be fairly significant.
Well, there are lots of reasons why this got only four comments, now five. What the hell can you say about it? Who wants to face the actual ramifications? More to the point–there’s been so much horseshit about whether global heating has been happening and why, and all the energy expended fighting about it, that we are way way way behind in beginning to figure out what needs to be done.
These two studies tell us about the two basic aspects of the climate crisis—and that there are two has not yet sunk in even with even many of our friends, let alone adversaries and enemies. First, there is a climate crisis underway that nothing we do now or in the future can stop. We can only respond to it, anticipate its consequences and blunt them or accomodate to the changes they create with as little pain as possible. This is our fifty to one hundred year task.
Second, there is the grave danger of increasing global heating to the point that very few of the life forms that now exist on this planet will survive, and there is the possibility that we are turning the Earth into Mars. To do all we can to avoid this fate is also our task, and we do know basically how to begin that effort—by drastically reducing fossil fuel energy use, while not replacing it with forms that also can devastate the future, like nuclear.
Negotiating our response to both of those ramifications with full understanding of what we’re doing and why is a monumental task that has not even begun with recognizing the double nature of the climate crisis.
So let’s expend our energies fighting about dKos. It’s just as futile but it’s more fun.
As for General Motors, I’m sure the sudden unfashionability of gas guzzlers had something to do with their retrenchment, although it likely has much more to do with the cost of health care. Another problem we can’t face up to.
Maybe the headline should really be we have run out of time. This year’s weather is starting to get all too indicative of the predicted effects of global warming. The hurricanse season has broken all records, never has the naming had to go to TD Delta after exhausting the list. Those hurricanes have also been more destructive than before, surely a wake-up call.
Western Europe has not been immune. From an historically warm summer we have flipped to snows far earlier in the late autumn than we have been experiencing recently. Again, these extreme are just the sort of things the models predict.
My worry is that we may be approaching a tipping point where the position becomes catastrophic. The conditions are almost at that crucial point where methane gets released from the melting permafrost and the undersea hydrates. That has a far more powerful effect, by a factor of about 10, than CO2. There would then be a runaway warming effect until a new balance is reached. The climatic instability would last for many years – we are talking in lifetime periods until a new equilibrium is reached.
In that situation you do not have to worry about New Orleans, just say goodbye to it along with Florida, much of the eastern, southern and western seaboards and the lower Mississippi valley. The models mostly predict huge increases in precipitation in the centres of the major continents so there may still be a viable living space around the lake formerly known as Arizona.
Comforting is that you and I will probably not be here to see it. Less comforting is that the same may apply to most of homo sapiens and 70-90% of other species.
And if you want to be even gloomier, perhaps the only thing that could avert this is a global economic collapse precipitated by a failure of the US economy and complete collapse of the dollar. There would be a domino effect starting with China not being able to afford to import the food it desperately needs as its agriculture is already bombing because of their pollution. That goes through to India and South America which have been growing their basic foodstuffs. Germany as the worlds largest exporter (did you know that?) would likely be the first EU country to go down. The EU can be food self-sufficient providing the gasline for the machinery keeps flowing. That might not be the case for the US where the reliance on large monoculture increases petrochemical consumption for fertilizers, machinery and most importantly distribution. Even the EU would face difficulties and threats of attack or invasion from those deperate for food.
Sweet dreams!
Might I add this clarification—we aren’t running out of time: WE HAVE RUN OUT OF TIME. The Climate Crisis is happening now, and it’s going to get worse for our lifetimes, for our children and grandchildren’s lifetimes, and for theirs. The fate of the next century is sealed, though we don’t know how bad it will get or how it will manifest.
Is this an argument against sustainable renewable energy? NO. There are lots of reasons to do it, and to accelerate our commitment to it. One of those reasons is to do what we can to prevent the Earth turning into Mars in the 22nd century or so. That’s a guess, but its eventuality is based on science, which these studies only confirm. It might happen sooner, or later, or never–but the more fossil fuel CO2 we pour into our little ribbon of atmosphere, and the longer we avoid paying attention to the Climate Crisis, the more we contribute to the likelihood of ending life as we know it on this planet.
Eventually, the Republicans are going to do a 180—they are going to say, yes, the climate crisis is real but there is nothing we can do about it, so let’s not ruin our economies trying. Are you prepared for THAT argument?