"2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity."
- The Independent, 4 January 2007
Two very sobering new articles on climate change:
In the first, Ten Reasons Why Climate Change May Be More Severe than Projected, we learn that:
Australian climate scientist Barry Pittock gave a terrific and terrifying talk at the 20th Anniversary of the Climate Insitute last week. He made the case that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the key international process for determining the "consensus" view on climate, is systematically underestimating the future impacts of climate change.
The other, in The Independent, says:
A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet...
Not to scare you, or to keep you up late at night, but it turns out that scientists have quite possibly been underestimating the rapidity of the climate change which we are experiencing because ... well, because they didn't want to scare people, and wanted to sound "responsible". Now, as more data comes in, they are changing their tune, and realizing that it's irresponsible to NOT be honest about the very likely future.
The author of Climate Progress, Joseph Romm, calls the new view "terrifying":
Australian climate scientist Barry Pittock gave a terrific and terrifying talk at the 20th Anniversary of the Climate Insitute last week. He made the case that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the key international process for determining the "consensus" view on climate, is systematically underestimating the future impacts of climate change. Since Pittock was a major contributor to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001) and since their Fourth Assessment is due out next year, we should pay attention to what he says.
You can see all of Pittock’s 10 reasons online in the abstract for his talk. Let me pull out four of the underestimations:
- "The climate sensitivity, or global warming after a doubling of the pre-industrial carbon dioxide concentration, is probably in the range of 2º–6°C rather than the 2001 IPCC estimate of 1.5º–4.5ºC. This suggests a more than 50% chance of that global warming by 2100 will be 3ºC or more, a level that many consider dangerous."
- "Permafrost melting is widespread," which "leads to emissions of carbon dioxide and methane," a dangerous vicious climate cycle that CP has written about.
- & 8. "Rapid changes in Antarctica" and "Rapid melting and faster outlet glaciers in Greenland," which combine to threaten http://climateprogress.org/... far faster and greater sea level rise] than climate models have been predicting.
2007 looks to be a particular bad year, quite possibly a crucial point in the process, as the Independent's article points out:
Professor Jones said the long-term trend of global warming - already blamed for bringing drought to the Horn of Africa and melting the Arctic ice shelf - is set to be exacerbated by the arrival of El Niño, the phenomenon caused by above-average sea temperatures in the Pacific.
Combined, they are set to bring extreme conditions across the globe and make 2007 warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record. It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records.
Joseph Romm is blunt in his assessment of the situation:
"In short, the time for inaction has run out."
The British of course have a more flowery way of putting it, whilst saying the exact same thing:
Sir David King, the Government's chief scientific adviser, who said that 2006 had shown that the "discussion is now over" on whether climate change is happening [writes in today's Independent that] progress has been made in the past year but it is "essential" that a global agreement on emissions is struck quickly. He writes: "Ultimately, only heads of state, working together, can provide the new level of global leadership we need to steer the world on a path towards a sustainable and prosperous future. We need to remember: action is affordable - inaction is not."
Let me repeat that:
"Only heads of state, working together, can provide the new level of global leadership we need to steer the world on a path towards a sustainable and prosperous future."
The future of the world is literally at stake here, and who do we have as the head of state of the most carbon-consuming country on the planet? The lame-duck, miserable-failure, Exxon-toady George W. Bush.
Can someone tell me why, again, we're supposed to put up with him until January of 2009?
Please, someone remind me. Are we letting him stay in office to be nice? Or ..... why, exactly?
We can't afford one more minute of the Bush Administration. I have a four year old son. I want him to have a world where he can, you know, breathe the air and actually survive on this planet we call home. Is that a lot to ask? Or is that one of those dreamy "liberal" notions?
I didn't think so.
Anybody remember the book "The Band Played On"? It was about looking back a the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, back when so many people were in denial about it. I fear that in a few years, we'll be reading a similar book (if we're still around and reading books) regarding today. And "The Band Played On" will be a perfectly apt title for that book as well.