"The climate dragon is being poked, and eventually the dragon becomes pissed off enough to trash the place... If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're fucked." says Jason Box, arctic researcher.
Long theorized as a climate-feedback mechanism, Arctic carbon has now been observed bubbling up to reach the surface as methane gas. Releasing methane (CH4) accelerates global warming 34 times faster than releasing CO2. As the Arctic continues to warm, methane is released faster, creating a feedback loop that makes the Arctic warm faster and faster, leading to unstoppable, catastrophic warming for all of us.
But it doesn't have to end like that. Read on.
Is the Climate Dragon Awakening? Box says, "In my professional opinion as a climatologist with more than 70 externally reviewed scientific publications, after 12 years of university education focused on atmospheric and oceanic science, and followed by 10 years of university lecturing on micro and mesoscale meteorology theory and instrumentation, Hansen's warnings should be met with an aggressive atmospheric decarbonization program. We have been too long on a trajectory pointed at an unmanageable climate calamity; runaway climate heating. If we don't get atmospheric carbon down and cool the Arctic, the climate physics and recent observations tell me we will probably trigger the release of these vast carbon stores, dooming our kids to a hothouse Earth. That's a tough statement to read when your worry budget is already full as most of ours is."
Indeed, when some people are confronted with a terrible truth with unimaginable consequences, they deny it, angrily and vehemently, rather than worry about it or do something about it. There is actually a theory that the ability to deny reality is a major factor in how humans evolved and became so successful. Thus, we see climate deniers who still cling to every bit of evidence that there's nothing really wrong, that we're in some mysterious warming cycle that might end at any moment, that only God can change the climate, and so on. They discredit all evidence to the contrary by clinging to beliefs like all climate scientists are hoaxers and only the good, upstanding oil companies are telling the truth.
But denying reality isn't doing us any evolutionary favors here. Can we take a deep breath and recognize that we don't have to deny the reality of climate change? We can change the reality. We've had decades to turn things around, and in that time, the people that were able to express hope instead of denial have done the impossible - the solutions we need are already here. The Earth isn't dead yet. We're not dead yet. But we will be if we don't do something. Now.
Avaaz says, "The UN knows this, and is bringing every world leader to New York for an emergency summit. But these leaders are wrapped up in their political jobs - it's not that they wouldn't want to save the world (what kind of idiot wouldn't?), it's just that we human beings are strange creatures - saving ourselves by shifting our economies to 100% clean energy is a big change, and we don't make big changes unless we feel a big push to do it."
During the summit, on September 21st, 350.org, Avaaz, and many other organizations have staged the largest climate mobilization in history.
Join them. If you're near New York, join the march. If you're not, join a local event. Got free time but can't afford to go? Search online for free buses to an event. Yes, people with money but not proximity are actually willing to pay other people to go on their behalf. Maybe you can be one of those people who buys someone a bus ticket. But plan to take part in some way. This world is worth saving, and we're the only ones who can do it.
Sign this petition and tell everyone you know to sign it. We need it to be huge with a record-setting number of signers for it to have an effect. Recommend this diary or others like it - or write your own.
We don't have much time left. Nobody knows for sure, but it's certainly not 85 more years as the old conservative projections figured. It's as short as 10 years.
10 years.
That figure comes from "Greenhouse-Gas Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2C", a paper published in 2009 in Nature. The paper was the result of research by a team of scientists from Germany, the UK, and Switzerland, working since 2006. Their study was the first to incorporate hundreds of uncertainties in the climate system into a single climate model and determine, to the best of our body of scientific knowledge, how much carbon could be burned before we would raise the average global temperature by 2 degrees Celsius.
To have an 80% chance of sticking below 2C, we can only burn 886 more gigatons of carbon. At our current rate of burn, we'll reach that amount in 10 years (by 2024). And that's if our burn rate doesn't keep increasing, as it always has in the past.
"Once you hear the numbers, at least for me, there is no more room for wishful thinking, for speculation or for doubt," said Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org.
We're in a race against the clock. Renewable energy has become so affordable that it made up 80% of all new power generation amongst developed countries. But it's not fast enough, and new renewable generation doesn't push down existing fossil fuel energy production quickly enough.
The real problem is oil and gas companies keep doing whatever it takes to keep their record-shattering profit stream going. Australia has had solar subsidies and emissions limits leading to tremendous renewable growth since 2009. It was even able to set a carbon emissions tax in 2012 and 22.6% of Australian homes now include solar power. Australia's carbon output was actually diminishing each year and "renewable energy in the state neared 33 per cent in 2013/14 - delivering the state's ambitious 2020 target six years ahead of schedule." They were doing amazingly well! But fossil-fuel benefactors managed to scare people into thinking rising electricity prices were caused by the carbon tax (in truth, almost all of the rise was caused by overbuilding fossil generation), so the people elected a new government, and the new government eliminated the tax and is putting policies in place that will dramatically slow renewable power expansion, increase coal exports, and kill the 24,000 renewables jobs that had been on track to almost double in number by 2020.
We don't have time for these setbacks. We have as little as 10 years left to make major changes. The technology is already here, already being deployed, but it needs to be deployed faster, without setbacks. Countries like Germany have been wildly successful in renewable installation and boast low unemployment and high export rates, and they started 10 years ago when renewable prices were about twice what they are now. Tell our leaders, tell your friends, we need these changes now. We can't listen to the fossil-fueled disinformation campaign. We can't afford more setbacks.
This is war. Against fossil-fuel companies sitting on 2,795 gigatons of carbon we can't let them sell - against oil tycoons wanting to grab a few more dollars from fossil gold mines before too many people wake up to the danger. And people are waking up. Even the billionaires. Tom Steyer recently left his job managing a hedge fund because it included fossil fuel investments. He went on to found NextGen Climate, a PAC that's focused on making climate change a top issue in elections with a web site that does a good job highlighting the impacts of climate change. Obama is starting to take bolder actions through the EPA, organizations are divesting from fossil fuels, and Pope Francis recently said destroying the planet is a sinful act.
But we all have to act now. Together. There will be sacrifice. The longer we wait, pretend we have time, the more sacrifice will be involved. Aren't monsoon floods in Pakistan pushing 1.5 million from their homes, and 2 million in India enough of an indication? Aren't record breaking storms and fires and floods across the U.S. creating mass devastation and rising food prices enough of a red flag that this is an emergency that needs attention now?
We can't deny reality any longer. This must be our tipping point for mass action. September 21st is the next battle. We must make it a big one.
Join the fight.
Sign the declaration of war.
Remember, Remember, the 21st of September.