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Drastic Climate Change But There Could Be A Solution

Comment by Larry Ross, July 13, 2007

George Monbiot shows a scientific basis for expecting the worst consequences of global warming much sooner than expected, if we continue present trends with only token and fig leaf measures.

But he also indicates that there is a scientific basis for effective action if there is committed action by Governments and industry.

So what will happen?

It depends on aware individuals, and groups educating others, and committing themselves to campaign for the necessary measures and investments.
If apathy, ignorance and short-term self interest continue to rule government decisions, humanity will go on to suffer irreversible disasters.

But there are several other problems not mentioned by Monbiot or by most climate activists, which have a fundamental bearing on Government decisions on global warming and the long-term effectiveness of government decisions.

I will mention a few:
(1) George Bush, his neocon administration, his foreign allies and those that follow, continuing to pursue their dream of global domination through waging wars, and military might including domination of space. Their concern is how to harness global warming activism to help achieve their military objectives.

(2) The power, commitment and wealth of 'end time' religious believers and their allies, devoted to bringing on a nuclear Armageddon, as they believe is called for by their God in the Bible (See Revelations) They now have great influence on US foreign policy, channelling it into directions which tend to bring on the ending they seek. They see global warming disasters as yet another manifestation of God's will which should be welcomed rather than resisted. Global warming is an ally of the powerful 'End Timers' drive toward God's Armageddon. Every irrational, puzzling and seemingly counterproductive policy and decision Bush makes in the Middle East , is explained in articles on "Dangers of Fundamentalism"

(3) The enormous efforts, wealth, research and industry devoted to the arms industry in all fields, including conventional, nuclear, chemical, biological, miniaturisation and other areas. This is turn creates a powerful lobby of interests and industry dedicated to keeping this destructive area growing. This in turn creates dedicated communities and politicians. It is often referred to as the Military-Industrial-Political Complex of interests.

These are some of the problems that must be addressed, as they are propelling humanity toward a nuclear Armageddon. Unless addressed and curbed, they may overtake drastic Global warming trends in bringing on global catastrophe.

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Water World: Slipping Toward Climate Catastrophe

by George Monbiot, July 12, 2007

Editor's Note: George Monbiot is a British journalist and author whose expertise is on climate change and other environmental issues. Monbiot's article reveals that government ineptitude in the face of increasingly frightening scientific data on climate change is not limited to the United States: The UK government is dangerously negligent on energy and climate issues even though it knows better.

Reading a scientific paper on the train this weekend, I found, to my amazement, that my hands were shaking. This has never happened to me before, but nor have I ever read anything like it. Published by a team led by James Hansen at NASA, it suggests that the grim reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change could be absurdly optimistic.

The IPCC predicts that sea levels could rise by as much as 59 centimeters this century. Hansen's paper argues that the slow melting of ice sheets the panel expects doesn't fit the data. The geological record suggests that ice at the poles does not melt in a gradual and linear fashion, but flips suddenly from one state to another. When temperatures increased to 2-3 degrees Celsius above today's level 3.5 million years ago, sea levels rose not by 59 cm but by 25 meters. The ice responded immediately to changes in temperature.

We now have a pretty good idea of why ice sheets collapse. The buttresses that prevent them from sliding into the sea break up; meltwater trickles down to their base, causing them suddenly to slip; and pools of water form on the surface, making the ice darker so that it absorbs more heat. These processes are already taking place in Greenland and West Antarctica.

Rather than taking thousands of years to melt, as the IPCC predicts, Hansen and his team find it "implausible" that the expected warming before 2100 "would permit a West Antarctic ice sheet of present size to survive even for a century." As well as drowning most of the world's centers of population, a sudden disintegration could lead to much higher rises in global temperature, because less ice means less heat reflected back into space. The new paper suggests that the temperature could therefore be twice as sensitive to rising greenhouse gases than the IPCC assumes. "Civilization developed," Hansen writes, "during a period of unusual climate stability, the Holocene, now almost 12,000 years in duration. That period is about to end."

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