When will 'we' get it? The news that comes out from scientific studies consistently and relentlessly reports that all indicators of climate change are worse, much worse, than most of our worst case scenarios.
Arctic ice, temperature change, CO2 rates, IPCC's worst case scenarios weren't bad enough.
Well, chalk another one up to 'not bad enough:' China's CO2 emissions are outpacing previous estimates by 2 to 4 fold.
In a new analysis to be reported in May's issue Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (now online, with cost), economists from UC Berkeley and UC San Diego found that China's emissions were much higher than estimates used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
Previous estimates, including those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, say the region that includes China will see a 2.5 to 5 percent annual increase in CO2 emissions, the largest contributor to atmospheric greenhouse gases, between 2004 and 2010. The new UC analysis puts that annual growth rate for China to at least 11 percent for the same time period.
Additionally,
The researchers' most conservative forecast predicts that by 2010, there will be an increase of 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions in China over the country's levels in 2000. This growth from China alone would dramatically overshadow the 116 million metric tons of carbon emissions reductions pledged by all the developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol.
So the ice is melting much faster than the worst case scenarios, CO2 emissions are rising much faster than the worst case scenarios, while we are learning some possible solutions, biodiesel (from foodcrops), and corn ethanol are actually causing even more problems from skyrocketing grain prices to increased CO2 levels. And some good real solutions like and solar, can be done in such a way to cause their own problems (pollution).
The only real quick solution I see is a drastic reduction in energy use and consumption.
And we need a quick solution because this long-term crisis, one that seemed decades away in our child's or grandchild's lifetime, is turning into something we are going to see soon, years, even in my own 20-30 years I have in my own life left (assuming I live to the average life expectancy).. something we are seeing now.
I can only hope that whoever wins the primary and the presidency in the coming months is PRESSURED hard to make huge changes in the way the country, and the world, is dealing with this.
UPDATE: changed the wording about solar and biodiesel, I believe both are good solutions, but biodiesel, if using foodcrops causes more problems and doesn't really solve the CO2 issue (use recycled or other source of oil) \ solar, when manufactured badly causes major environmental contamination.