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related tags:
tagged w/ tipping points
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Dr. James Hansen: Facing the truth about global warming
"April 27, 2011, Dr. James Hansen received the Green Book Award from the Center for Science Writings at Stevens Institute of Technology. He then gave this lecture, "Facing the Truth About Global Warming."
Good information here."April 27, 2011, Dr. James Hansen received the Green Book Award from the Center... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 month ago
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- 5 comments
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10 Tipping Points Which Could Potentially Plunge The World Into A Horrific Economic Nightmare
The global economy has become so incredibly unstable at this point that it is not going to take much to plunge the world into a horrific economic nightmare. The foundations of the world economic system are so decayed and so corrupted that even a stiff breeze could potentially topple the entire structure over. Over the past couple of months a constant parade of bad economic news has come streaming in from Europe, Asia and the United States. Signs of an impending economic slowdown are everywhere. So what "tipping point" will trigger the next global economic downturn? Nobody knows for sure, but potential tipping points are all around us.The global economy has become so incredibly unstable at this point that it is not... more-
- Revelation1217
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- 8 months ago
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Gulf Oil Ecocide: Most toxic oil still in water columns?
This video exposes a confidential report of an experiment done in Norway in 2000 by a consortium of oil companies including BP and the US government showing how a deep water blowout would create clouds of super toxic oil which could not be recovered. Was it a surprise that most of the oil from the BP well stayed in the Gulf of Mexico, at depth, in clouds of small particles? It may have been to us but it shouldn't have been to BP or MMS (the government agency whose job it is to regulate deep water drilling). It also should have come as no surprise to NOAA (the government agency that regulates anything in the sea around the U.S.) All of those institutions did deny the first reports of the clouds when they were found by the Pelican research vessel and the University of Missisippi's Dr. Ray Highsmith and his crew. But they must have known because MMS and the oil companies paid for, and conducted an experiment off the coast of Norway in 2000 to see what would happen in a deepwater oil well blowout. Remember all that "this is a new problem" you heard on television? Well the study showed that the oil would not all rise to the surface to be collected but would tend to form cloud layers of neutrally buoyant particles that might be the most toxic part of the oil.
Here's a direct quote from the report:
"This is important information, because the water-soluble compounds are generally the most toxic ones when exposed to marine biota. The results from these measurements show that the rising of the oil through the water column represents a kind of a "stripping" process of some of the most toxic compounds in the oil. The end result is therefore that a portion of the most toxic compounds is left in the water column."
to see the final report go to
http://afterthepress.com/?p=315
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But hey, the media and government told us everything is all gone, and a "study" just coming out (how timely) states that bacteria ate every little bit of the methane in three months! Gee did it chase it through the atmosphere too? Wow! What a miracle! G U L L I B I L I T Y is killing this planet. But hey, let's not seek truth or rock the boat or try to connect the dots. Afterall, it was only a little over a few million gallons of toxic oil and pounds of toxic soup mixed in.This video exposes a confidential report of an experiment done in Norway in 2000 by a... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 1 year ago
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- 53 comments
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Methane Seeps, Tipping Points Feared as Congress Sleepwalks
"Methane is leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf into the atmosphere at an alarming rate... Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming."
- National Science Foundation press release (March 4, 2010)
As the U.S. Senate finally prepares to bring climate-related legislation to the floor, it has become painfully obvious that the most crucial ingredient in any such debate - a true sense of urgency - is completely absent. Despite the fact that all future life on the planet hangs in the balance and a point of irreversible runaway warming is being rapidly approached, the Senate is proceeding as if it is sleepwalking in a stupor. It has allowed the fossil fuel industry to sabotage all effort at meaningful carbon emission reductions, and will only be considering legislation that is woefully inadequate to prevent catastrophe.
Those who follow this issue likely have familiarity with the concept of "tipping points". This innocuous-sounding phrase does not do justice to its vast meaning. It refers to the crossing of a line whereby tremendous natural forces are unleashed and an unstoppable rush of interlocking climate disruptions wreak havoc on the earth and its fragile web of life-supporting ecosystems. Once set in motion, it cannot be predicted how far the devastation would extend. Geological records have linked a severe climate shift with the "Great Extinction" event which wiped out a ghastly 90% of all life forms on the planet.
Serving as a direct counterpoint to this disastrous "disconnect" from reality in the Senate is the stunning news that these tipping points may be much closer than previously imagined. Ignored by mainstream media, recent scientific findings have the potential to turn the world as we know it upside down. Situated off the Siberian coast - in an area containing more carbon than that known to exist in all the world's oil, coal, and natural gas reserves - is the climate threat of all climate threats. Some call it the "Arctic super carbon pool". Others call it a "methane time bomb". The reason for this ominous latter description is the quite real threat of an unstoppable chain reaction which could release much or all of this tremendous stockpile. This is a nightmare scenario feared by many tracking the evolution of the climate emergency.
Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas, at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Once the methane - currently in frozen form - begins to thaw and release gas, it either oxidizes in the water or travels to the surface and enters the atmosphere. If the latter occurs, it can act as a strong warming agent and therefore cause even more of the frozen methane to thaw and release gas. The scientific term for this self-perpetuating cycle is "reinforcing feedback".
The "conventional wisdom" was that this thawing and venting of methane would not manifest for at least 100 years. But as the case has been with much such "wisdom" these days, scientists have encountered great difficulty in accurately predicting the full consequences of the unprecedented alterations being imposed on the planet by greenhouse gases. The reality of climate disruption has continued to outpace the projections. Recent studies of the Siberian methane show that a very serious amount is already venting to the atmosphere.
In their report (summarized in Chapter 6), researchers Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov describe that methane is now being released across a full 50% of a quite sizable study area in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Based on 5100 seawater samples taken from 1080 different locations, they report that 80% of the bottom water and 50% of the surface water is "super-saturated" with methane. Adding to the seriousness is the fact that this methane is not oxidizing in the water. Due to the shallow depths of these seabeds, the methane is traveling directly to the surface and venting into the atmosphere.
Methane is a volatile gas that rapidly expands in volume as it releases. Referring to the giant stockpile in this arctic shelf, Shakhova and Semiletov warn that it is "highly possible for abrupt release at any time. That may cause a 12 time increase of modern atmospheric methane burden with consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming." As if this information is not unsettling enough, one then encounters the following staggering fact. This entire scenario is being played out in the most rapidly warming geographic location on the planet: "The Arctic is warming more quickly than the rest of the world, and this warming is most pronounced in the arctic shelf."
Given the potential for such a catastrophic event and with so many factors lining up that could indeed release the trigger, one would expect the collective scientific community to issue a grave warning to the world. If ever there was a time to exercise the precautionary principle, it would be now. Stunningly, the scientific community is failing to do so. Instead, in a classic exhibition of ivory tower disconnectedness - perhaps in combination with a hesitancy brought on by the aggressive attacks of deniers - it is calling for more definitive "proof" that the thawing of methane is directly related to human-generated warming and not being caused by other natural sources.
The stupendously dangerous flaw in this reaction is that by the time such proof is "definitively gathered", it could well be too late to stop the runaway chain reaction. In a situation where we may already be too late, it is the height of irresponsibility to argue for even more delay. If a blind person appears to be walking toward a cliff and is only three steps away, does a responsible observer guide that person away from the edge or stand back and wait for more proof? In this case, the blind person is all of humanity. The world needs every precious moment it can find to move back from the precipice.
cont."Methane is leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf into the atmosphere at... more-
- JanforGore
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- 1 year ago
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- 5 comments
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Provocative New Study Warns of Crossing Planetary Boundaries
THIS IS INCREDIBLY INTERESTING.... MUST READ!
Human civilization has had a stable childhood. Over the past 10,000 years, as our ancestors invented agriculture and built cities, the Earth remained relatively stable. The average global temperature fluttered slightly, never lurching towards a greenhouse climate or chilling enough to enter a new Ice Age. The pH of the oceans remained steady, providing the right chemical conditions for coral reefs to grow and invertebrates to build shells. Those species, in turn, helped support a stable food web that provided plenty of fish for us humans to catch. The overall stability of the past 10,000 years may have played a big part in humanity’s explosion.
Now, ironically, civilization has become so powerful that it can reshape the planet itself. “We have become a force to contend with at the global level,” as Johan Rockstrom of the Stockholm Resilience Center in Sweden, puts it. Humans have changed the chemistry of Earth’s oceans, lowering their pH and causing ocean acidification. We are shifting the composition of the atmosphere, raising levels of carbon dioxide higher than they’ve been in at least the past 800,000 years.
A number of scientists have warned in recent years that if we keep pushing the planet this way, we will cause sudden, irreversible damage to the systems that made human civilization possible in the first place. Typically, they’ve just focused on one of these tipping points at a time. But in today’s issue of the journal Nature, Rockstrom and 27 of his fellow environmental scientists argue that we have to conceive of many tipping points at once. They propose that humans must keep the planet in what they call a “safe operating space,” inside of which we can thrive. If we push past the boundaries of that space — by wiping out biodiversity, for example, or diverting too much of the world’s freshwater — we risk catastrophe.
Unfortunately, the authors of the Nature paper maintain, we’ve already started pushing out beyond these boundaries without knowing where they actually are. “We’re sitting on top of a mesa right now, and we’re driving around, but we don’t have our lights on and we don’t even have a map,” says Jonathan Foley, a co-author of the new study and the director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. “That’s a dangerous way to move around.”
Rockstrom and his colleagues developed the concept of planetary boundaries from earlier work on how natural systems change. Those changes are sometimes gradual, but they can also come in jolts. A lake, for example, can absorb a fair amount of phosphorus from fertilizer runoff without any sign of change. “You add a little, not much happens,” says Shahid Naeem of Columbia University, who was not involved in the Nature paper. “Add a little more, not much happens. Add a little... then, all of sudden, you add a little more and — boom! — phytoplankton bloom, oxygen depletion, fish die-off, smelliness. Remove the little phosphorus that caused the tipping of the system, and it does not reverse. In fact, you have to go back to much cleaner water than you would have imagined.”
In recent years, some scientists have argued that the entire planet behaves in a similar way. Adding extra greenhouse gases can raise the planet’s temperature in a steady, proportional rate. But there may come a point when the climate will get pushed into a drastically new state. Some climate scientists have argued, for example, that global warming may trigger the runaway collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Even if we then immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases, the ice sheets would keep collapsing into the sea. And then we couldn’t do anything to reverse the change. “We don’t know how to refreeze the Greenland ice sheet,” says Rockstrom.
MUCH more at link...THIS IS INCREDIBLY INTERESTING.... MUST READ! Human civilization has had a stable... more-
- WakeUpPeople
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- 1 year ago
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- 2 comments
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U.S. says climate bill might not pass in time
You know, at this point I say, SO WHAT? It isn't as if this Congress is even going to give us a bill that the Earth NEEDS. 17% reductions of GHGs by 2020 is PITIFUL. Dragging your feet on giving us REAL fuel emissions standards is PITIFUL when scientists have already stated we could be getting 80 miles to the gallon in our cars. And where are the subsidies for the AFFORDABLE hybrid plug- ins for the middle class? Ignoring Arctic melt because you want to secure sea routes for the resources there is PITIFUL. Ignoring the effects your cronyism in the agricultural sector are having on the environment is PITIFUL. Continuing to allow the practice of mountaintop removal is CRIMINAL.
So by all means, U.S. Congress, show the world your true colors and just how bought and sold to the coal and oil industries you really are even at a time of planetary crisis. Then go to Copenhagen hanging your heads in shame. Approving the Alberta Clipper pipeline to pipe in dirty bitumen tarsands while trying to tell the world the U.S Is ready to tackle climate change is also an insult to our intelligence. But go ahead, continue to think you can rickroll the American people with your doubletalk and ignorance. The day will come when your decades of inaction will have the full effect and your petty, selfish, politically partisan drivel will be seen for the irrelevance it is.
This also proves their level of consciousness about this is nil. It is not now a question of them having the luxury of a CHOICE as to whether they can pass this in time or not. This is a moral imperative that scientists state must be done and done right to stave off the worst effects of a crisis that will change our way of life. This in essence IS our healthcare bill, because without a sustainable planet we have nothing else, including health.
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Excerpt:
The fate of U.S. legislation capping carbon emissions weighed heavily on delegates at U.N. climate talks starting Monday in Bangkok, with the Americans saying delays in passing the bill could deter commitments from other nations.
Negotiations on a new U.N. climate pact have been bogged down by a broad unwillingness to commit to firm emissions targets, and a refusal by developing countries to sign a deal until the West guarantees tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance — something rich countries have so far refused to do.
"The more specific we can be, the easier it is to press others to be equally specific," Jonathan Pershing, the chief U.S. negotiator at the talks, told The Associated Press. "We have a lot of things we want from countries. ... The less we can put on the table, the harder it is to achieve that outcome."
The two weeks of U.N. climate talks in the Thai capital are drawing some 1,500 delegates from 180 countries to boil down a 200-page draft agreement to something more manageable, aiming for a new international climate pact this year.
In June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its first bill to cap carbon emissions. The Senate, currently embroiled in debate on health care, is expected to take up the legislation as early as this week.
But Pershing said he doubted there's enough time to pass a climate bill in Congress before the year's biggest climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December, which aims to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012.
end of excerptYou know, at this point I say, SO WHAT? It isn't as if this Congress is even... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 2 years ago
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- 5 comments
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Awe Inspiring pictures from space of glacial melt
Seen from space these new images show us how the future of sea levels MAY rise when we realise that the IPCC has not factored in these variables into there projections to 2100.Seen from space these new images show us how the future of sea levels MAY rise when we... more-
- GreenhouseNeutralFoundation
- added this
- 2 years ago
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- 7 comments
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Tipping Points: What Wall Street and Nature Have in Common
The universe seeks balance.-
- Progresshiv
- added this
- 2 years ago
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- 0 comments
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Dr. James Hansen: cap and trade not good enough to avoid climate catastrophe
Refreshing to hear someone talk about the realities of the climate crisis we face. Refreshing to hear someone talk who is not so involved in the politics of it that they can talk about what we must do instead of what we must settle for. Of course, a carbon tax ( or as I would call it, a Co2 reduction fund) is just not "politically feasible" to those on Capitol Hill because it actually holds polluters accountable.
As always we must stroke them, massage them, cajole them, and basically kiss their as*** in order to get to the point where carbon emissions will hopefully be lessened to the point where we can avoid that tipping point. Unfortunately, instituting cap and trade now by issuing free pollution credits that will be abused along with insignificant emission caps won't get us to that point in the time we need to get there without other measures.
Now, if this were 1985 I would more than likely be for cap and trade. However, this isn't 1985, it is 2009, and the window leading up to the tipping points of irreversible consequences is closing more rapidly. It is actually a shame that politicians need to be looked upon now in order to give us policy regarding a crisis that scientists should be making since they are the ones with the knowledge. I have never seen such a disconnect between scientists and politicians on an issue, and in the case of this current crisis, it is a disconnect we cannot afford.
Some say we cannot allow this bill to fail because it would be bad. Well, my question is, how bad will it get even if it passes? If you cannot assure that we will reach even 70% emission cuts by 2040, then what good is an inadequate bill just for the sake of having a bill? I just sincerely hope that if this particular bill is passed, it does not cause other countries to state that their emissions targets can be as low as well, because when we had to chance to really lead, we followed.Refreshing to hear someone talk about the realities of the climate crisis we face.... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 2 years ago
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- 2 comments
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Climate clock is ticking
To the twelfth hour.
From the article:
In the summer of 2007, a large portion of Arctic Sea ice - about 40 per cent - simply vanished. That wasn't supposed to happen. At least not yet. As recent as 2004, scientists had predicted it would take another 50 to 100 years for that much ice to melt. Yet here it was happening today.
It raised the question: Had global warming suddenly pressed the gas pedal to the floor? If so, the world was in for quite a climate ride - dramatic, jarring changes in climate much sooner than expected. Climate scientists were deeply worried.
"It really caught the scientific community by surprise," Professor James Ford, a McGill University geographer and Arctic expert recalled. "The Arctic system is close to crossing the threshold beyond which we will get dramatic changes in climate."
The sudden mass melting brought an earlier ice event into new perspective. In 2005, scientists at the Canadian Ice Service, the nation's leading ice specialists, were examining satellite images when they noticed that the Ayles Ice Shelf, which is about as big as the island of Montreal, had suddenly broken free from the top of Ellesmere Island and floated away.
Vincent Warwick, an Arctic expert at Université Laval, said at the time: "This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead."
The ice melt of 2007 seemed to confirm Warwick's fears. Reports since then claim the Arctic ice could be gone by 2013.
We have already crossed some critical climate thresholds. The world not only has to drastically cut back its greenhouse gas emissions but also begin to take steps to deal with the inevitable changes that global warming will cause. The much-feared tipping points - which would cause massive icecap and ice shield melting, and plunge the world headlong into severe weather systems, causing broad devastation and rising seas - seem increasingly probable.
This is why, scientists say, the United Nations climate talks that began this week in Bonn, Germany, and will culminate in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, are so important. They are a last chance for the world to come to its senses and negotiate an agreement to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists have been warning about these tipping points for decades, but few politicians have listened. Most industrialized countries led by the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe have continued to pump increased amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere despite promises to reduce emissions below 1990 levels.
Developing countries like China and India have taken no steps to curtail their emissions. With a new coal-fired power plant coming on stream every week, China is now the world's biggest GHG producer.
The atmosphere now contains 387 parts per million of carbon dioxide. This is more than the Earth has seen in the last 650,000 years. Pre-industrial levels were about 270 ppm, which remained pretty well constant over the 100,000 years mankind has walked the Earth. Scientists say that because of a delayed reaction, we have yet to experienced the full effect of what we already have put into the atmosphere. That effect will unravel in the decades to come. Meanwhile, we're adding about 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere annually or about 2 ppm. Last year alone, global GHGs increased three per cent.To the twelfth hour. From the article: In the summer of 2007, a large portion of... more-
- JanforGore
- added this
- 2 years ago
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