Earth Care Group Blog: Climate Change Impacts

Jan,
Your assessment of the global environmental crisis is both succinct and eloquent.
The devastation we've waged on the planet and each other is grounded in our inability to extend empathy. The fact that this devastation continues on every level of our contact with our world, with each other, and with our selves, is a failure of will.
The central question is whether the human race in its present size and form is capable of effectively addressing the problem. With only the most minute number of exceptions, the overwhelming evidence is that as a whole, we are most certainly not.
Naturally, I am curious if a tiny fraction of humans can make a difference in this equation.
Historical patterns are not an accurate predictor of events, but it’s possible that a continuing disruption and possible collapse, of social, economic, and environmental systems may lead to an era similar to medieval experience of what we casually call the Dark Ages, where some threads of knowledge, imperfectly preserved, were maintained by a small dedicated group in a few remote towers while war and pestilence washed over the land for centuries.
Alternately, of course, mankind could miraculously wake up overnight due to the clarion call of its advances in communications and technology and bring an instant healing to the planet and create an Edenic and peaceful world.
Although I hope for the second alternative, given the circumstances and evidence that solution seems wildly optimistic.
In either case, it would seem the most rational solution is what you and others have suggested, individually understanding and reconnecting to the earth in a safe and sustainable way.
Like others, I expect, I do that as a manner of course. I wish others the best in that pursuit as well, and help them whenever possible. It’s a good way to spend one’s time on the planet.
I hope that Earth Care forum will be useful in that regard.

Common sense tell us that the the point of no return is already passed. Furthermore, when the delicate balance in our geophysical system is rubbed the consequences are not easy or even possible to predict.

How could we possibly minimize the consequences for impacts which will occur but we are unable to predict? I would suggest to put the efforts in prediction models. Not everybody will survive that's the history of our planet and we see it everyday.

Thank you for posting these pictures and starting this blog. Regardless of "climate gate" or one freak winter of snowstorms, there is photographic evidence that our earth is warming!

thousands froze to death in 2009-2010 coldest winter on record

We hope to convey through this series of articles that the symptoms of what lay ahead are all here for us to see. Climate change is real and the consequences tragic if we fail to act. Enviornmental enlightenment is really necessary for those of us who care to make a difference. Every long trek starts with that single step.
We hope you follow, comment and can add to what is certian to be engauging.
Its not about whether its happening or not, it is. The questions are how do we convey this moral imperitive? How do we influence those who make those decisions(our elected officials)? What can we do individually? Honest debate please!

Again, thank you for writing this Tommic. I think it is imperative that people understand the processes of the Earth that bring us to this time and place. and I just want to mention to those who may read this and say it is only natural that not ONE scientist, or Al Gore, or anyone else has ever stated that there are not natural variations in the flux of our planet. We all know this. What is now unique and urgent about this crisis however, is that we as humans are through our activities exacerbating the pace and breadth of the effects of variations, and also creating effects where there were none. It is undeniable that glaciers worldwide are melting. Accounts from people who live in these areas are bountiful as is evidence from scientific testing in the Arctic and can be found if you really want the truth.

And while some others may balk at this and say this isn't going to get worse in their lifetime, well then, what about he lifetime of your children and theirs? Don't you care about that? I am very disappointed that this crisis has been so politicized because it demeans the substance of the discussion. Hopefully in this group that discussion can take place without the interference of agendas.

entry continued:

In one study of 244 glaciers on the peninsula, 212 have retreated an average of 600 m (2,000 ft) from where they were when first measured in 1953. The greatest retreat was seen in Sjogren Glacier, which is now 13 km (8.1 mi) further inland than where it was in 1953. There are 32 glaciers that were measured to have advanced; however, these glaciers showed only a modest advance averaging 300 m (980 ft) per glacier, which is significantly smaller than the massive retreat observed.

Arctic arches that contain sea ice from escaping into the Pacific at the Bering Strait and the Atlantic at the Nords strait have failed to stop the doubling of ice released into the oceans with real possibilities of further diluting salt water and effecting ocean currents.

Geophysical Research Letters, used satellites and buoys to show that winds since 2000 had pushed huge amounts of thick old ice out of the Arctic basin past Greenland. The thin floes that formed on the resulting open water melted quicker or could be shuffled together by winds and similarly expelled. The pace of change has far exceeded what had been estimated by almost all the simulations used to envision how the Arctic will respond to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases linked to Global warming. Proponents of cuts in greenhouse gases cited the meltdown as proof that human activities are propelling a slide toward climate calamity.

The Greenland glaciers that cover the island contain enough water to raise sea level twenty feet, or seven meters. It was once thought (and that was only six years ago) that the glaciers would be self-sustaining even in a warming world because of size and so on. We now know that not only are the edges melting fast, but the surface melt is seeping through the ice to lubricate the junction between the glacier and the rock underneath. This is the unexpected factor that has turned scientific attention onto this escalating problemWhen this happens much of this mountain of water will flow into the sea. Already twenty-one of the great glacial masses are moving seawards eight times faster than ten years ago and disintegrating three times faster than in the preceding five years. The Greenland, Alaskan and West Antarctic ice sheets together hold about 25% of the fresh water on the planet. The effects of the collapse of either ice sheet would be huge. Once you lost one of these ice sheets, there's no putting it back for thousands of years, if ever.

If they disintegrate, sea level could rise nearly 20 meters, possibly in only one decade. This would swamp most cities and ports, as well a much of the best agricultural land.
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