The canary in the mine is dead. The STATE of Alaska must take the lead in its future as it is clear that federal policy is contrary to Alaska's survival. I am so sorry for the world that my children will have to live in too soon.
"....by one calculation emissions over the rest of the century could average....about the same as current annual emissions from fossil-fuel burning in the United States."
Consider two things:
1. The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) did not even take methane into account when they made their dire warnings for the planet, because the amount of methane release was not then known. So---to err on the conservative side at a time when their predictions were being over-politicized---they didn't ball-park it, they just omitted it from their models. All of it.
2. If the amount released per year equals the amount of greenhouse gasses the entire U.S. releases, that is a massive amount of greenhouse gas omitted from the models we've all been using.
Those two facts ought to get ANYONE busy calling for an all-out response, but as we've seen, facts do not drive much of public opinion in the U.S.
So it goes. We'll all become acquainted with these realities soon enough.
Consider two things:
1. The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) did not even take methane into account when they made their dire warnings for the planet, because the amount of methane release was not then known. So---to err on the conservative side at a time when their predictions were being over-politicized---they didn't ball-park it, they just omitted it from their models. All of it.
2. If the amount released per year equals the amount of greenhouse gasses the entire U.S. releases, that is a massive amount of greenhouse gas omitted from the models we've all been using.
Those two facts ought to get ANYONE busy calling for an all-out response, but as we've seen, facts do not drive much of public opinion in the U.S.
So it goes. We'll all become acquainted with these realities soon enough.
1
The story is powerful, excellent and long overdue.
I read the comments though, and think we need some clarity. Truthfully, it might be too late for humans, animals and most plants to survive by the turn of the century. It doesn't look good. However, we need to get focused. IF we are to survive, people have to turn off their TVs, quit watching football and other sports, and start organizing people in their respective communities to join together and demand change. One thing I know for certain: the "big boys and girls" are not going to save us; if we are to survive as a species, along with animals, it will only because ordinary people got off their butts and forced the necessary changes.
I read the comments though, and think we need some clarity. Truthfully, it might be too late for humans, animals and most plants to survive by the turn of the century. It doesn't look good. However, we need to get focused. IF we are to survive, people have to turn off their TVs, quit watching football and other sports, and start organizing people in their respective communities to join together and demand change. One thing I know for certain: the "big boys and girls" are not going to save us; if we are to survive as a species, along with animals, it will only because ordinary people got off their butts and forced the necessary changes.
It is way too late to stop or reverse global warming by reducing human carbon emissions. Only some nuclear winter will stop it now. Donald is on to it.
First step, if I were to live in Alaska; vote all science deniers out of office. They can do this and take first step in saving what remains there of earth.
This is a good article with great photos. There could be more though. For example how much is 1.5 billion tons of carbon, and how does this relate to the Earth's carbon budget. Overall how much additional warming is this projected to be? Note that the warming we have will/is leading to additional warming on it own. Warming is a series of cascading warming events, hence the necessity to get to zero man-made carbon emissions now. Present policy on the part of Republicans and the fossil fuel industry is criminal. It is estimated it will take about 1000 years after zero emissions for the CO2 in the atmosphere to adjust back to normal. During that time CO2 which has entered the ocean will return to the atmosphere in a reversible equilibrium reaction, continuing some warming--a slow process. What is not slow is the speed--decades instead of 1000s of years--at which anthropogenic warming is taking place. The geologic record shows past warming events with CO2 build-up, but we are dependent on models to show the speed of the predicted effects of the current build-up. These model generally err on the cautionary (slow) side. All the more reason to take swift action now.
Carbon released from permafrost will also go directly into the ocean. How will this affect ocean acidity regionally and globally? Just as on land where insect populations and plants are affected by global warming, all sea life, including the food webs that effect human consumption (fish), will be affected.
Carbon released from permafrost will also go directly into the ocean. How will this affect ocean acidity regionally and globally? Just as on land where insect populations and plants are affected by global warming, all sea life, including the food webs that effect human consumption (fish), will be affected.
News articles that mention permafrost should tell us if the problem has been taken into account in studies making forecasts about the progress of climate change and its effects.
That would really be a great sentence for an article like this. Was permafrost thaw part of the model in the study the NYT wrote about a month ago, or a few months ago? Does what this article talks about change the situation you've already read about, or are we just getting more focus on part of the problem?
That would really be a great sentence for an article like this. Was permafrost thaw part of the model in the study the NYT wrote about a month ago, or a few months ago? Does what this article talks about change the situation you've already read about, or are we just getting more focus on part of the problem?
1
I hope democrats don't stop running their campaigns on this issue. And don't forget the Russian Nuthin Burger. Such a dark and gloomy contrast to new Alaskan biological possibilities and economic development opportunities. I only see Eskimos on bicycles getting a lot of sunshine and exercise.
1100 AD, Greenland was warm enough Norse were able to farm to survive, who melted all the ice then? Little Ice Age arrived, they were forced to move out due to inhabitable climate. 500 million years ago(I know it is a long time ago) when the life began on the Earth, Carbon Dioxide level was 10 times of current level-I didn't read it from the tabloid news. Milankovitch Cycle believers and all those of nay-sayer of human contribution to the global warming, are these all science fiction? go to the Central Park or Botanical Garden in New York, you can see the rocks carved by the glaciers 10,000 to 20,000 years ago and we are not looking at the artificial rocks. it is real. you can read it from the guide post. looking at the wonderful graphic is frightening but most the scientists believe not too long ago, the Behring Strait was covered with ice and you know the rest of the story
When I try to consider the evidence and work out whether climate change is a real phenomenon or just a heightened and unreasonable fear, I can’t; I just don’t have the knowledge. And so the only reasonable course of action is to take advice from those who do and what they are saying is that climate change is a real phenomenon which is having a devastating effect upon our planet. They could, of course, be wrong but they are still providing the best advice available and should be listened to and their advice acted upon. Sometimes, Mr President, you just need to accept the advice of those who know more about a subject than you do.
1
Unfortunately, it's too late to prevent the loss of much of the permafrost. It's already melting due to our prior greenhouse gas pollution, and it will continue to melt at an accelerated pace. If we were to make serious cuts to our emissions, that pace might slow, but the locked-in melting of arctic ice, natural emissions from the permafrost melt and deep-sea carbon release will, at least to some extent, offset even our best efforts. And, of course, it is doubtful that we will make adequate emissions reductions in any case.
There are additional dangers not mentioned in this article. One is that ancient bacteria and viruses, trapped in the deeper layers of the permafrost and unseen for millennia, can be released, exposing us to a host of new maladies. And of course permafrost melt will release enormous quantities of fresh water that will effect the functioning of the hydrosphere and the salinity of the oceans. Finally, the permafrost isn't melting just in Alaska — Siberia and parts of Scandinavia are melting as well.
We're in for a very wild, very rough ride.
There are additional dangers not mentioned in this article. One is that ancient bacteria and viruses, trapped in the deeper layers of the permafrost and unseen for millennia, can be released, exposing us to a host of new maladies. And of course permafrost melt will release enormous quantities of fresh water that will effect the functioning of the hydrosphere and the salinity of the oceans. Finally, the permafrost isn't melting just in Alaska — Siberia and parts of Scandinavia are melting as well.
We're in for a very wild, very rough ride.
6
To put things in a very long-term geological perspective, permafrost in Alaska or elsewhere is not eternal. There have been warmer and colder times that the present. In the last few decades, humanity has been confronted with the effects on climate exerted by the global population growth and the ever increasing industrialization, based on fossil-fuel burning. Well, dear fellow humans, solar energy is still not harnessed, despite more than 100 years since the empirical discovery of the photoelectric effect and its theoretical explanation by Einstein.
Please write more stories about the consequences of climate change. The permafrost thaw releases greenhouse gases, which no doubt will hasten global warming, as if we needed a warmer Earth at the moment.
Stories like this one should be front and center on every newspaper in the U.S., yet given the few comments, I can see why so few papers bother. The graphics are fantastic in this article and the story easy enough for all non-scientists to understand. What is it with us?
Our children and grandchildren: do we not care?
The world's big nobodies make front page news today. No one will care about about them or their egos or their broken selves when we all are wrestling with finding homes for climate migrants.
We had many chances for decades to do the right thing to ward off the Earth's warming. We didn't. But now more than ever, we must act. Please: more coverage.
Stories like this one should be front and center on every newspaper in the U.S., yet given the few comments, I can see why so few papers bother. The graphics are fantastic in this article and the story easy enough for all non-scientists to understand. What is it with us?
Our children and grandchildren: do we not care?
The world's big nobodies make front page news today. No one will care about about them or their egos or their broken selves when we all are wrestling with finding homes for climate migrants.
We had many chances for decades to do the right thing to ward off the Earth's warming. We didn't. But now more than ever, we must act. Please: more coverage.
7
The root cause of all global environmental problems including any effect of humans on the climate is overpopulation, but there is no leadership to address it. As the human population increases from 7.5 to some 10 billion carbon-generating human heaters over the next century or so, the problems that we are observing now are just the beginning.
11
Mr. President, is permafrost thaw also a part of the Chinese climate change hoax you have identified? Can you get them to stop it, please?
6
In response, what should be permanent: Our efforts to do everything legally possible to combat and reverse climate change.
Ask not what your planet can do for you, ask what you can do for your planet.
Ask not what your planet can do for you, ask what you can do for your planet.
5
Climate change is not one of the issues to be concerned about, it is the only issue to be concerned about. It will take an environmental catastrophy to finally wake up the dunderheads, but by then it will be too late.
11
It's already too late; it was too late ten years ago.
We have been doing too little, too late for decades; recycling is busy work compared to the things we should be doing to stop and reverse climate change. For instance, an increasing number of people believe in the reality of climate change and that human activity is a major cause of it. However, if you ask them to change their habits, they'll insist that meat is too delicious and they need their car(s) to get to work and other destinations.
The best thing that could happen would be for an asteroid to hit the planet and wipe out human civilization; unfortunately, there would probably be no record of what happened, so any civilization that replaced us would be clueless and would probably run the planet into the ground in just the same way. And so on, and so on.
We have been doing too little, too late for decades; recycling is busy work compared to the things we should be doing to stop and reverse climate change. For instance, an increasing number of people believe in the reality of climate change and that human activity is a major cause of it. However, if you ask them to change their habits, they'll insist that meat is too delicious and they need their car(s) to get to work and other destinations.
The best thing that could happen would be for an asteroid to hit the planet and wipe out human civilization; unfortunately, there would probably be no record of what happened, so any civilization that replaced us would be clueless and would probably run the planet into the ground in just the same way. And so on, and so on.
4
As many have pointed out, we believed scientists about the precise moment of this week's eclipse, yet 45 and his team of morons questions climate change evidence, happening right in front of their eyes. Beyond.
11
But I thought there was NO GLOBAL WARMING?
Republicans - save us!
Tell us not to believe SCIENCE or START acting like ADULTS please.
Republicans - save us!
Tell us not to believe SCIENCE or START acting like ADULTS please.
1
Well, if the Alaskan permafrost is melting, it's what Jesus wants it to do, that's for sure.
1
Despite all the teeth gnashing, humanity appears to have no real desire or plan to deal with what we have done to this planet. So at this point all we can do is document the atrocities to allow future historians, if any, to answer the question: "What were they thinking?"
11
We are losing our world forever, one drop and degree at a time.
10
What I fail to understand is the voters in states where climate change is happening most dramatically. Texas is about to get hit with an early season storm. Miami has streets awash at high tide. The permafrost is leaving...even Ice Road Truckers can't make it happen. And these idiots continue.
6
How sad that at this point, there are only two other comments about the most pressing issue facing humanity and the world's ecosystems. Instead of focusing on limiting climate change, far too much energy and commentary is being devoted to the Gadfly in Chief, who is so enamored of himself that he often refers to himself in the third person.
In reading about extreme weather this summer, record temperatures were being set throughout the world, some unbelievably approaching or surpassing 120F. Global weather patterns are changing. Plants and animals, those that can adapt, are moving further northward in the Americas, with displacements occurring world wide.
As E. O. Wilson and others have noted, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction. It is not just about how this will impact the swelling numbers of human beings on our planet, but countless other species, animal and plant, marine and land.
In reading about extreme weather this summer, record temperatures were being set throughout the world, some unbelievably approaching or surpassing 120F. Global weather patterns are changing. Plants and animals, those that can adapt, are moving further northward in the Americas, with displacements occurring world wide.
As E. O. Wilson and others have noted, we are in the midst of the Sixth Great Extinction. It is not just about how this will impact the swelling numbers of human beings on our planet, but countless other species, animal and plant, marine and land.
8
While we worry about the headlines and the braggart in chief in the White House and all the things happening in the world, the world itself is changing and we are hardly even paying attention. Permafrost melting,Greenland actually becoming green, the world's largest living thing the Great Barrier Reef seemingly dying.
The list is getting longer and yet America is actually turning back the clock and removing safeguards on mining exploration and allows fracking all over the place.
A lot of people need to wake up and take a stance, not for their selves but for their kids and grandkids and of course the planet we live on.
Mid-terms are a starting point. Get rid of GOP control of the houses and slow the damage that your President is unleashing.
The list is getting longer and yet America is actually turning back the clock and removing safeguards on mining exploration and allows fracking all over the place.
A lot of people need to wake up and take a stance, not for their selves but for their kids and grandkids and of course the planet we live on.
Mid-terms are a starting point. Get rid of GOP control of the houses and slow the damage that your President is unleashing.
14
I'm grateful the NYT is covering this, but every article makes me cry. Climate change is terrifying, and our president is doing nothing.
17
The point may be that if we shut down every internal combustion engine, every electricity-generating plant, if every Indian stopped making cookfires, if every Chinese stopped burning coal, if everyone everywhere just stopped and stood and did nothing -- it's too late. The warning that came thirty-plus years ago may have been too late. We're toast.
4
I procrastinated for hours before reading this article, because I knew it would be heartbreaking. Well, it may be too late, as an earlier comment writer said, but I am not willing to just resign myself to it. I still make efforts to RESIST, and I hope other readers will as well. Focus on local issues; that is where there is some leverage.
3
Nobody is doing anything serious. Nobody. Emissions control on factories and cars do too little. The whole modern show must cease now. By force, if necessary. A sane government would stop all immigration, illegalize cars and return us, forcefully, to a hunter gatherer society.
"The coming years will prove increasingly cynical and cruel. People will definitely not slip into oblivion while hugging each other. The final stages in the life of humanity will be marked by the monstrous war of all against all: the amount of suffering will be maximal."
Pentti Linkola
Can Life Prevail?: A Revolutionary Approach to the Environmental Crisis. page 152
"The coming years will prove increasingly cynical and cruel. People will definitely not slip into oblivion while hugging each other. The final stages in the life of humanity will be marked by the monstrous war of all against all: the amount of suffering will be maximal."
Pentti Linkola
Can Life Prevail?: A Revolutionary Approach to the Environmental Crisis. page 152
A true conservative is one who wants to conserve, not only his way of life, his connection with ancestors, with his God or gods, but the nature of his homeland.
No compromise .Any "conservative" who places profit over homeland must be seen as a traitor. We must become cruel, or all is lost---Pentti Linkola