There is a Seattle version of the Burrito Justice map.
http://spatialities.com/searisemaps/islandsofseattle/
Because I live at the top of a ridge, my house will be on one of the higher points of Wedgwood Peninsula.
The UW will be an underwater campus.
http://spatialities.com/searisemaps/islandsofseattle/
Because I live at the top of a ridge, my house will be on one of the higher points of Wedgwood Peninsula.
The UW will be an underwater campus.
I used to live just South of the TV tower on Twin Peaks, at 700ft + I would have escaped Burrito Justice's cataclysmic vision but the thought of no more tacos and burritos in the Mission would have been tragic.
In 1988 the organization Earth Watch declared that to prevent global warming "the 1990s will be crucial." By now we've blown through several more "crucial decades" and yet so little is done to prevent an unbearably hot future. The rains we experience in the middle west now resemble storms of the tropics. And the winters are astonishingly mild compared to the 1950s and 60s. But you have to be a certain age to recognize it wasn't always this way.
3
Want to join in on the fun? Make a map of your own coastal community's future here:
http://choices.climatecentral.org
This interactive tool has the added benefit of being based on rigorous science. (yay!)
http://choices.climatecentral.org
This interactive tool has the added benefit of being based on rigorous science. (yay!)
Mooallem's article is a total waste of journalistic space. Instead of getting outraged because his first apartment is underwater in a fantasy/joke scenario why doesn't he write about the facts. They're outrageous enough.
1
I wonder why the Pentagon, in its strategic planning, takes the problems associated with global climate change so very seriously.
Haven't the generals and admirals been listening to the politicians?
As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson so eloquently queried: "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?”
What could possibly be more important then short term profits for the fossil fuel corporations and each individual American's sacred freedom to use all the energy he/she can afford?
Many Republicans in Congress, moreover, have assured us of the following:
There is no global climate change.
Even if there were such change, it is not due to human activity; and even if it were due to human agency, there is nothing we now can do about it; and even if there was something we mere mortals could do about it, it would cost too much to intervene; and even if it would not cost too much to intervene, why should we bother? It costs us absolutely nothing to just sit here and be flooded, swelter and fry. It is far more cost economically efficient just to sit here and endure the flooding, sweltering and frying as best we can.
Obviously, there is no need to pay any attention to those alarmist scientists and their rantings about some purported global climate change.
Besides, as the fundamentalist Christian Congressmen remind us, we are in the End Times anyway and we have known for millennia that the long scheduled Wrath would descend upon us.
Well, here and now it descends!
Haven't the generals and admirals been listening to the politicians?
As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson so eloquently queried: "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?”
What could possibly be more important then short term profits for the fossil fuel corporations and each individual American's sacred freedom to use all the energy he/she can afford?
Many Republicans in Congress, moreover, have assured us of the following:
There is no global climate change.
Even if there were such change, it is not due to human activity; and even if it were due to human agency, there is nothing we now can do about it; and even if there was something we mere mortals could do about it, it would cost too much to intervene; and even if it would not cost too much to intervene, why should we bother? It costs us absolutely nothing to just sit here and be flooded, swelter and fry. It is far more cost economically efficient just to sit here and endure the flooding, sweltering and frying as best we can.
Obviously, there is no need to pay any attention to those alarmist scientists and their rantings about some purported global climate change.
Besides, as the fundamentalist Christian Congressmen remind us, we are in the End Times anyway and we have known for millennia that the long scheduled Wrath would descend upon us.
Well, here and now it descends!
4
We have to live with Climate Change it because we have done nothing to prevent it because we don't believe it and want to remain indifferent as well as apathetic (que sera, sera) and find some relief that most of us will not be around when your grand kids 9th floor condo unit is 8 feet above the waterline, your car has long ago become a submarine, and your boat is now tied to the 9th floor dock. With the world population rapidly approaching 8 billion humans we truly have shafted ourselves with such selfish, toxic, and cumulatively destructive anti-environment activity. Now Trump and his cabal of EPA executioners will finish the Earth off and hundreds of millions of us with it.
4
There is a human cost from climate change that is often overlooked. As sea levels rise, crops fail, and the supply of protein foods we now enjoy (fish, beef, pork, poultry) becomes more scarce, the disparity between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' will grow even wider than it is now. The social and economic fallout from dwindling resources will be catastrophic and certainly not limited to any one country or population. I grieve for the loss of the beauty and magic of the natural world on our planet, but I hope I'm not around to see the human suffering that will surely accompany its demise.
5
I can't speak for Shanghai or London, but those hundreds of millions of people living in New York and other coastal areas will be welcomed in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It didn't help things when the Bay Area's coastal wetlands were filled with concrete to make roads, parking lots, shopping centers, (Corte Madera is one), and other infrastructures. This is also done in Boston, NY and other cities built on swamps, like Wash DC.
2
Can't someone send a fleet to pick up the plastic stuff in the Pacific and Atlantic ... Bill O'Reilly is looking for redemption maybe he'd give of his time between the "Killing" faux books...Why not ask the old morons that read his trash to help clean up their precious "free" planet.
5
You would need more than a fleet to pick up floating detritus the size of Texas. If we had ships that could melt down and recycle plastic while at sea...maybe.
What this article doesn't convey is the risk that positive feedbacks in the climate system - falling albedo, melting permafrost, release of soil carbon, etc. - will push climate change into a self-reinforcing state. We're not even sure that this hasn't already happened, given the lag in the climate response to current greenhouse gas concentrations.
Issue is, we just don't know what outcomes will be. Be it fantasy maps or models based on the most sophisticated computation we can apply, it's all the best guess. There are those who attempt to live clean and healthy lives, controlling what they eat, refraining from the vices of smoking and drinking, exercising to stay fit and living in areas of less pollution, who can wind up with some deadly carcinoma. Similarly, one may attempt to use the best maps, predictions and models in deciding where to live and how to plan for the inevitable consequences of climate change. It's all folly. We simply cannot know enough to say any particular lifestyle will guarantee you will never get cancer. We cannot know enough to guarantee, wherever you live, that the results of climate change will not thrust disaster upon you. Those who live away from the most obvious dangers are distracted by those obvious dangers. The shift in disease vectors and the potential for more violent localized storms are but the least of it. The local infrastructure constructed with no consideration of the new demands the shifts will bring and the disruption to our water, sewer, road, and other supply systems that underpin our day to day expectations and necessities is going to be an issue everywhere. Future generations, if they survive, will have cause to curse their progenitors for the mess we're making.
Since the advent of the industrial revolution until now scientists say we burnt 2,000 billion tons of carbon driving the planetary temperature up by 1.2 degrees Celsius. That is dangerously close to the 1.5-degree limit that scientists say we dare not exceed and look at the rapid increase in global extreme weather events we are already experiencing. If burning 2,000 billion tons of carbon increased the planetary temperature to 1.2 degree Celsius we can only burn another 473 billion tons of carbon to get us to the 1.5-degree level. The critical issue that is being ignored is, right now we have 2,795 billion tons of carbon in inventory ready to burn – that’s 6 times more fossil fuel than we can afford to burn and expect to survive. If we burn that much it may drive the planetary temperature as high as 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rendering the planet uninhabitable for many creatures, including us. We must leave carbon in the ground or humans won’t be around.
1
Just as it may take thousands of years, hundreds of thousands or more, for animals to adapt to a changing environment, human beings may not be able to adapt in time. Perhaps our consciousness isn't as evolved as it needs to be, and we won't be able to adapt enough to accept and look at the reality we created and are facing.
Things are much worse than the threat of water lapping at the front stoop or flooding the basement, even tilting a skyscraper. The oceans are turning acidic. The Arctic and Siberia, where ice and permafrost are melting, contain methane wells, some 200 miles across, that if allowed to explode into the atmosphere, could produce a mass extinction along the lines of the Permian. No trees survived that. Maybe the naked mole rats that don't need so much oxygen and live underground will survive. Perhaps they will be the future of this planet.
Lord knows, we have plenty of rats now, in government, who refuse to adapt and want to force upon the rest of the world their nonadaptive mindset. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Those of us who can see and feel have a responsibility to remove impediments to solutions, if it is, in fact, not completely too late. That means get these monsters out of power. It means massive education of the reluctant and the ignorant. It means saving life rather than becoming too complacent, or too shut down to face the future. There will be a future. The question is, what will be alive in it.
Things are much worse than the threat of water lapping at the front stoop or flooding the basement, even tilting a skyscraper. The oceans are turning acidic. The Arctic and Siberia, where ice and permafrost are melting, contain methane wells, some 200 miles across, that if allowed to explode into the atmosphere, could produce a mass extinction along the lines of the Permian. No trees survived that. Maybe the naked mole rats that don't need so much oxygen and live underground will survive. Perhaps they will be the future of this planet.
Lord knows, we have plenty of rats now, in government, who refuse to adapt and want to force upon the rest of the world their nonadaptive mindset. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Those of us who can see and feel have a responsibility to remove impediments to solutions, if it is, in fact, not completely too late. That means get these monsters out of power. It means massive education of the reluctant and the ignorant. It means saving life rather than becoming too complacent, or too shut down to face the future. There will be a future. The question is, what will be alive in it.
4
I fail to understand why no one is talking about ocean acidification and the concomitant extinction of photosynthesizing organisms in the upper reaches of the ocean where sunlight penetrates, thereby eliminating perhaps 50% of the sources of oxygen to the atmosphere. Everyone thinks oxygen comes from trees but think again.
2
The irony would be funny if it weren't so sad; Jon laments a future of being a stranger in your own home...most Americans feel that way currently.
To detail the reasons why would mean my comment goes unpublished and censored but suffice to say rhymes with "millegal mimmigration"
To detail the reasons why would mean my comment goes unpublished and censored but suffice to say rhymes with "millegal mimmigration"
2
The climate is too hot now and has been for decades. The Paris accords will not reduce temperatures but, hopefully, reduce the rate of increase. Glaciers will continue to melt at increasing rates and the weather will become more unpredictable and extreme. Climatologists are only debating about the amount of the warming, and they have been increasing the upper temperature range as well as the ocean level. A rise of 200 feet in 60 years is a joke, but is five feet? 10 feet? The highest tides in the San Francisco area are seven feet. Even an increase of three feet at high tide will cause major flooding. What will a thee foot rise in the ocean do to Miami and New Orleans?
4
Here are a couple of useful presentations by Richard Alley from Penn State, one of the experts on past and present changes in ice, CO2 and sea levels. There's a bit of overlap, but they're both good.
Ice sheets and sea level in a warming world: Prof Richard Alley (published May 29, 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt4QLcocveE
Abrupt Climate Change In The Arctic: Prof Richard Alley (AGU 2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEUyjDyXCkE
Ice sheets and sea level in a warming world: Prof Richard Alley (published May 29, 2016)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt4QLcocveE
Abrupt Climate Change In The Arctic: Prof Richard Alley (AGU 2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEUyjDyXCkE
Apart from fantasy maps, the best predictor of the medium and long-term future is to be found in science-fiction. Consensus views from within the field have been shown to predict the future with 80%+ accuracy. If sub-humanity (politicians, businessmen and theocratically-inclined journalists) maintains its current course, climate change will devastate civilisation as we know it. And this is without the devastating effects of greed-driven, errors of judgement like building a skyscraper on unstable in-fill. Such actions may well cause the collapse of communities even before the sea-level laps over the two-metre line.
Perhaps it is time to consider charging persons who act to negatively alter climate and attack ecosystems, with crimes against humanity.
Perhaps it is time to consider charging persons who act to negatively alter climate and attack ecosystems, with crimes against humanity.
8
I like this. Instead of hypocritical grandstanding, the elite media would be better served to soberly focus on how we can adapt to the "new climate". There is no point "wishing" climate change wouldn't happen. We're burning all the oil. Time to adapt. Good job NYT...more of this and less finger pointing please!
4
This is the position of The Heartland Foundation, the Koch Brothers' far-right climate-deniers who now position themselves as "CLIMATE REALISTS." So hey, there really is global warming, and WE're causing it, but doing anything about it would be so massively expensive and accomplish so little that we are just better off relaxing and ADJUSTING TO IT. Continue burning fossil fuel freely, polluting the ocean w/ our waste and all the rest. In the meantime the Kochs and their cronies pile up more profits.
1
What strikes me most is the message that remains unspoken when one reads "between the lines" and considers in aggregate the content of the three articles in this week's edition of NYT Magazine ("The Deluge," "Up and Out," and "Under Water"): first, that the debate is not that sea level is rising, but by how much, and how fast; second, that municipalities, regional authorities and even nations are devising and already implementing massive, now multi-million, but soon-to-be trillion dollar engineered means and methods to create/protect land from the encroaching sea, what we in the engineering world view as a long term business opportunity euphemistically term "Coastal Resilience;" and third that the levers of global finance and risk management are beginning to comprehend the massive losses and disruptions to global supply chains that have, can and will occur as the pace of climate-induced sea level rise and meteorological black swan events accelerates. Can these engineered structures be designed, funded and implemented rapidly enough once the threat of coastal inundation causes a tipping point in the political debate? I can only imagine the socio-political conflicts that will erupt once it is realized that trillions of dollars of long term debt obligations upon which modern deficits are partially financed, and which are collateralized by real estate holdings, might be at risk, and can only be saved by massive investments in further tax- or debt financed investments.
6
Generational amnesia is especially potent in Florida. Rather recently, a student researched standard end-of-the-day photos of charter boat customers in the Keys with the fish they'd caught. Early on, the fish hung on display were huge. Over the years, they grew smaller, and smaller. Today, by historic standards, they're tiny. In the Everglades, the wading birds have crashed; there's been some hopeful recoveries, but Burmese pythons seem to be eating their way through the birds as well as everything else. The upper St. Johns River marshes are perhaps a consolation, restored birds, including good duck hunting.
As for San Francisco, planning for rebuilding parts of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach have taken sea level rise into careful account.
Coastal communities in Florida are requiring new construction to be elevated above reasonable storm surge levels for at least a few decades. In my town, it's a bit comic to see a recent CVS pharmacy on a substantial mound next to a Walmart grocery that moved into an existing building and was allowed to use it at its existing elevation.
As for San Francisco, planning for rebuilding parts of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach have taken sea level rise into careful account.
Coastal communities in Florida are requiring new construction to be elevated above reasonable storm surge levels for at least a few decades. In my town, it's a bit comic to see a recent CVS pharmacy on a substantial mound next to a Walmart grocery that moved into an existing building and was allowed to use it at its existing elevation.
13
And in ten years from now the CVS will be the only store left above the tide line. The others will be retail diving wrecks. Life jackets will be the new CVS POP items and water taxis the new H2Uber.
This is the kind of nonsense that completely destroys public acceptance of global warming. Wild exaggeration and doomsday prophecies convince most people that global warming is unscientific boloney. 200 foot sea level rise in 50 years is an absurdity. Real scientists talk of inches, not hundreds of feet.
The earth's temperature has risen 1.1 degrees in 150 years according to scientists and may rise a total of 2 degrees. People who hyperbolize undercut the seriousness of the issue.
San Francisco is building a billion dollar basketball arena on a pier and wouldn't do that if city planners thought the floor would be wet in 50 years. People are still paying a premium for water front property in California. When the rich move from San Francisco to the Sierra foothills, I'll be concerned. In the meantime, articles like this convince thinking people that global warming is a joke. And it isn't.
The earth's temperature has risen 1.1 degrees in 150 years according to scientists and may rise a total of 2 degrees. People who hyperbolize undercut the seriousness of the issue.
San Francisco is building a billion dollar basketball arena on a pier and wouldn't do that if city planners thought the floor would be wet in 50 years. People are still paying a premium for water front property in California. When the rich move from San Francisco to the Sierra foothills, I'll be concerned. In the meantime, articles like this convince thinking people that global warming is a joke. And it isn't.
3
Basketball palaces have short useful lives, maybe 20 years.
Oceanfront and saltwater frontage residential property in Florida has been booming, with wholesale teardowns and lots of fill dirt to raise houses to new minimum elevations. It's a game for the top tenth of one percent. The eventual property tax revenue consequences for my beach-resort county will be devastating.
Oceanfront and saltwater frontage residential property in Florida has been booming, with wholesale teardowns and lots of fill dirt to raise houses to new minimum elevations. It's a game for the top tenth of one percent. The eventual property tax revenue consequences for my beach-resort county will be devastating.
11
A 200 foot sea-level rise is a virtual impossibility, under any scenario; there is not enough continental ice. However scientists speak of 12 to twenty-five inch rises from simple thermal expansion of the oceans; which is a lot of what is currently being seen. This is under the plus 2 degrees scenario which is considered the present best case. Add in some continental ice (Greenland, Antarctica) and 15-16 feet becomes plausible.
City planners will build tar-paper shacks in hell if the financial incentives are sufficient and the rich expect that the community will build billion dollar sea-walls to protect their property. The rich will move to the foothills when they can sail there in their yachts.
City planners will build tar-paper shacks in hell if the financial incentives are sufficient and the rich expect that the community will build billion dollar sea-walls to protect their property. The rich will move to the foothills when they can sail there in their yachts.
1
"A vitrual impossibility..." - That's what the dinosaurs all said about meteors.
Sorry, bad link sent earlier to a self-sustaining building, The Bullitt Center in Seattle, which opened on Earth Day in 2013.
www.bullittcenter.org/
BTW Germany and many other European countries have some of the best self-sustaining and "green" architecture...
You can also write to or address your city's development commission to consider regulations on new buildings that encourage "green" (solar hot water, geothermal, wind turbines atop buildings, low polluting building materials, etc) design and construction. And, it's often not more expensive...
If all of these methods work in the Pacific Northwest, they can work anywhere.
www.bullittcenter.org/
BTW Germany and many other European countries have some of the best self-sustaining and "green" architecture...
You can also write to or address your city's development commission to consider regulations on new buildings that encourage "green" (solar hot water, geothermal, wind turbines atop buildings, low polluting building materials, etc) design and construction. And, it's often not more expensive...
If all of these methods work in the Pacific Northwest, they can work anywhere.
1
Germany would be in much better ecological shape if they hadn't taken in a million militant young men last year. Visit any area populated by this wave of unvetted foreign migration and see the filth, the squalor, the third world appearance of the land, the massive piles of garbage lining the streets where the "migrants" lurk. Want to keep your the U. S. A pristine? Stop all illegal immigration. The southern border area of the U. S. A is covered with garbage dropped by the illegals on their way to welfare nirvana in America. Plus they then consume precious American resources when they settle illegally, to say nothing of the theft of our identities and stolen social security numbers.
Green up the planet snd all will be well. Unless methane emissions get out of hand we'll be fine.
Just a bit warmer and wetter. It's poignant that we have such a string need to feel guilty. I see it as hubris.
Just a bit warmer and wetter. It's poignant that we have such a string need to feel guilty. I see it as hubris.
1
Jon,
A funny, deeply sad and lucidly written article. How to hold horror and fear in one hand and hope and action in the other...well, we all have to help each other deal with the knowledge that we are well past the tipping point.
So glad you interviewed Peter Kahn, a hero of mine. He is full of sane, creative ideas...
The technology, the experts, the creative problem solvers, the materials, and the money, are all here--we just need to (speedily) get all available hands on deck. Easier said than done.
Bill and Melinda Gates have come to truly understand how tough it is going to be to change over most of our energy sources to renewables, fight disease, starvation, drought--- and they are now focusing on birth control in addition to all of their other projects! Last year Bill said that beef production is one of our worst problems. Now that's something we can change!
I have a nice lifestyle w/no car, beef, pork -- no pets, no TV, no house, no AC (have a lovely, small downtown apt) & use streetcar and rail for transport. Community gardens, parks & Farmers Markets are all over the city. But so are thousands of homeless...
Here's a self sufficient office building in Seattle...
A Building Not Just Green, but Practically Self-Sustaining
www.nytimes.com/2013/.../the-bullitt-center-in-seattle-goes-well-beyond-...
Send your creative idea links and concerns to your representatives from city to federal level.
As far as lifestyle changes, you know what to do, right?
A funny, deeply sad and lucidly written article. How to hold horror and fear in one hand and hope and action in the other...well, we all have to help each other deal with the knowledge that we are well past the tipping point.
So glad you interviewed Peter Kahn, a hero of mine. He is full of sane, creative ideas...
The technology, the experts, the creative problem solvers, the materials, and the money, are all here--we just need to (speedily) get all available hands on deck. Easier said than done.
Bill and Melinda Gates have come to truly understand how tough it is going to be to change over most of our energy sources to renewables, fight disease, starvation, drought--- and they are now focusing on birth control in addition to all of their other projects! Last year Bill said that beef production is one of our worst problems. Now that's something we can change!
I have a nice lifestyle w/no car, beef, pork -- no pets, no TV, no house, no AC (have a lovely, small downtown apt) & use streetcar and rail for transport. Community gardens, parks & Farmers Markets are all over the city. But so are thousands of homeless...
Here's a self sufficient office building in Seattle...
A Building Not Just Green, but Practically Self-Sustaining
www.nytimes.com/2013/.../the-bullitt-center-in-seattle-goes-well-beyond-...
Send your creative idea links and concerns to your representatives from city to federal level.
As far as lifestyle changes, you know what to do, right?
3
Correction: SpecialKinNJ
The decadal averages referred to should be 58.1 for 2000-2009 and 56.6 for 1880-1889.
The decadal averages referred to should be 58.1 for 2000-2009 and 56.6 for 1880-1889.
2
The idea of anthrax being "released" in nature suggests it takes the same form as the highly dangerous "weaponized" anthrax formulated by the government and used to kill innocent people in 2001. This is not the case. Anthrax exists in nature, in any cow pasture, it would have to virtually be ingested to kill.
2
According to the investigations, this was a gastro-intestinal type of infection. Reindeer ate some of the thawed spores, the herders ate some of the reindeer.
Article here - details toward bottom http://www.livescience.com/55621-zombie-anthrax-kills-in-siberia.html
That article references a 2011 article warning of the potential for this type of outbreak as permafrost thaws, particularly in areas where large outbreaks in the past left many carcasses which may have remained frozen since burial. Their current recommendation is to monitor such areas.
"Thawing of permafrost may disturb historic cattle burial grounds in East Siberia" Published in "Global Health Action" Published online 2011 Nov 21. doi: 10.3402/gha.v4i0.8482
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222928/
Article here - details toward bottom http://www.livescience.com/55621-zombie-anthrax-kills-in-siberia.html
That article references a 2011 article warning of the potential for this type of outbreak as permafrost thaws, particularly in areas where large outbreaks in the past left many carcasses which may have remained frozen since burial. Their current recommendation is to monitor such areas.
"Thawing of permafrost may disturb historic cattle burial grounds in East Siberia" Published in "Global Health Action" Published online 2011 Nov 21. doi: 10.3402/gha.v4i0.8482
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222928/
1
Heres a good story:
Climate change will be good. When the coasts are underwater, the climate change acknowledgers will migrate to the inlands of the US, engulfing the deniers cites and towns. Only then will they acknowledge the issue. Then we shall live in harmony.
Climate change will be good. When the coasts are underwater, the climate change acknowledgers will migrate to the inlands of the US, engulfing the deniers cites and towns. Only then will they acknowledge the issue. Then we shall live in harmony.
Ctrl+Atl+Del. Let's start anew and make our lives even simpler with newer and better technology.
That's the real and unstoppable effects of the climate change crisis we face. No matter what new studies devised by some far-fetched algorithmic tests can demonstrate, it is human ingenuity that will ultimately kill off the planet.
Just how long can we keep Mother Earth on life-support?
That's the real and unstoppable effects of the climate change crisis we face. No matter what new studies devised by some far-fetched algorithmic tests can demonstrate, it is human ingenuity that will ultimately kill off the planet.
Just how long can we keep Mother Earth on life-support?
3
There is unfortunately no gold at the end of the rainbow and I think millenniums grandchildren trudging across a flooded plain will say “You knew this was going to happen and you did nothing”. Nature does remove CO2 in a quiet and efficient fashion, . Perhaps we can divide the problems of global warming and nuclear disaster threatening this world into one peaceful path. North Korea has learnt how to split the atom so why cant the Western World invite and remunerate North Korea to employ its highly qualified army of scientists to take a path of peace and investigate splitting the CO2 molecule.
2
In "An Inconvenient Truth", good old AL Gore used the frog-in-the-pot analogy to say pretty much the same thing...
1
See Kim Stanley Robinson's new book, New York 2140, for another view of the future with climate change.
3
Many environmentally aware people -esp lefty boomers on the coasts- have a even larger carbon footprint than less wealthy ones, largely because of dissonance driven consumption (all those flights!) or in-numeracy (switching lights off but driving to supermarkets).
Our psychological responses to climate change writings such as these fits Per espen stoknes 4-D wall:
Denial - "Watching apocalyptic climate porn?"
Distance - "Oh, that'll happen in, like, 2100" or "Bangladesh will have it bad"
Dissonance - "I just bought a condo on the coast"
iDentity - " You know I'm green. I drive a Tesla"
As Sven Lindquist once said " It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions"
Our psychological responses to climate change writings such as these fits Per espen stoknes 4-D wall:
Denial - "Watching apocalyptic climate porn?"
Distance - "Oh, that'll happen in, like, 2100" or "Bangladesh will have it bad"
Dissonance - "I just bought a condo on the coast"
iDentity - " You know I'm green. I drive a Tesla"
As Sven Lindquist once said " It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions"
4
Excellent essay - the San Francisco map concept brings to mind Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison (The Harrison Studio) and their decade-old project Greenhouse Britain - a quasi-speculative fiction that becomes more real as we move forward into this unknown future. http://theharrisonstudio.net/greenhouse-britain-2007-2009
Excellent article. I see the psychological disconnection between the facts we know about climate change and the behavioral choices we make every day. One of my favorite examples is how the daughter of a friend of mine flew from Portland, Oregon with (private) school group all the way to Australia last Summer. The purpose? To attend a youth conference on...environmentalism and climate change.
Also, I just finished "Barkskins" by Annie Proulx. It chronicles the change in the landscape of North America over the centuries by following the progression of the lumber trade. It's heartbreaking. To learn about what environmental wonders used to swim, grow, fly, and run across this country and now are forever extinguished brought home how much we have lost. The thing is, most people don't KNOW what we've lost. Your phrase, Shifting Baseline Syndrome, describes this perfectly. Thanks again for the thought-provoking piece.
Also, I just finished "Barkskins" by Annie Proulx. It chronicles the change in the landscape of North America over the centuries by following the progression of the lumber trade. It's heartbreaking. To learn about what environmental wonders used to swim, grow, fly, and run across this country and now are forever extinguished brought home how much we have lost. The thing is, most people don't KNOW what we've lost. Your phrase, Shifting Baseline Syndrome, describes this perfectly. Thanks again for the thought-provoking piece.
3
My outdoor lifestyle over the the past 55 years climbing/mountaineering, hiking ocean kayaking has given me the chance to appreciate what we had and lost. There are fewer places in the world with the wildness and the bounty that existed, its all becoming compromised. Anyone in the same lifestyle or ties with the land will tell you that. James Balog filmmaker of Chasing Ice will tell you that. The stresses on the environment have been great.
The change has been subtle and profound, I am very lucky to have experienced the richness of it all and have advocated for it as well. My heart goes out to the future of those that never will or want too. How we can destroy an amazing nutrient pool for the sake of greed is disgusting.
The change has been subtle and profound, I am very lucky to have experienced the richness of it all and have advocated for it as well. My heart goes out to the future of those that never will or want too. How we can destroy an amazing nutrient pool for the sake of greed is disgusting.
3
Most boomers should be able to recall the days when climate was the same year in and year out. This recent phenomenon of seeing climate change happen is only available to those that have lived a longer life and are in any way observant. Those that will be around long after I am gone should be very concerned with the changes that are being recorded. Climate can be good to us or it can be the death of us, but one thing for certain is that climate makes the rules. Humanity and all we have built is still and always will be subject to those rules.
3
No, the climate has never been the same year in and year out. There have been droughts, floods, blizzards, frogs have rained from the heavens, you name it, sporadically and forever.
One would expect climate change to make the weather more violent and perhaps unpredictable due to extra heat energy, but not enough that one could pin a particular weather event to global warming.
One would expect climate change to make the weather more violent and perhaps unpredictable due to extra heat energy, but not enough that one could pin a particular weather event to global warming.
1
During my Long Island childhood the seasons were the same. Heavy snow falls during the winter (not anymore,) big fall thunderstorms (LILCO lost power every time,) and spring now arrives 2 weeks earlier and fall 2 weeks later.
well written and interesting story. But it leaves open the 'now what' question. Because knowing all of this makes it impossible to 'unknow'. There are folks who literally cannot see and understand this future, their minds are not wired to understand.
It takes either empathy or an extreme level of conscious awareness that can be neutral and sees what works best. Empathy works best to create collective collaboration on issues everyone understands, from the core.
And it is our consumption that harms the planet. We eat animals but raise them in conditions that will be the story of the concentration camps of our generation in the not so distant future.
We must change our diet; nothing would have a comparable impact to change minds and see how easy it can be. Do a meatless Monday promotion, some focused one liner description that allows large participation without the need for any sort of leadership. It is just the right thing to do. Today we have thousands of voices with so many solutions. Pick one that the PR and Marketing folks can work with, and watch it take off. Maybe there is a better idea out there, I haven't seen one that carries the day.
It takes either empathy or an extreme level of conscious awareness that can be neutral and sees what works best. Empathy works best to create collective collaboration on issues everyone understands, from the core.
And it is our consumption that harms the planet. We eat animals but raise them in conditions that will be the story of the concentration camps of our generation in the not so distant future.
We must change our diet; nothing would have a comparable impact to change minds and see how easy it can be. Do a meatless Monday promotion, some focused one liner description that allows large participation without the need for any sort of leadership. It is just the right thing to do. Today we have thousands of voices with so many solutions. Pick one that the PR and Marketing folks can work with, and watch it take off. Maybe there is a better idea out there, I haven't seen one that carries the day.
Generational Amnesia is an interesting concept that applies to rapid population growth.
I’ve lived here well over twice as long as the average local. When I tell them about a day when there was no street crime, when tribal fighting was scarce, when all the trees were in the ground and when there were more adults than children, they don’t believe me.
It works another way. Up until 150 years ago, for thirty five thousand years most children died and the survivors didn’t live very long. The population essentially didn’t grow. Men who sired many children were justifiably hailed as heroes.
Hard to change
I’ve lived here well over twice as long as the average local. When I tell them about a day when there was no street crime, when tribal fighting was scarce, when all the trees were in the ground and when there were more adults than children, they don’t believe me.
It works another way. Up until 150 years ago, for thirty five thousand years most children died and the survivors didn’t live very long. The population essentially didn’t grow. Men who sired many children were justifiably hailed as heroes.
Hard to change
2
You six to eight foot estimates are incorrect. First of all, many models show the possibility of much higher sea levels, but give it a low probability. That is the so-called tail-risk. And, to be clear, we are not talking one in a million chance, but one in twenty or even less. Secondly, a recent study by the renowned James Hansen and around twenty other scientists, show that much higher sea levels in a short period of time have a historical president. They looked at the last time CO2 rose to current levels and how the ice caps responded. They say we could see 10 feet of sea level rise by 2060 and 3 feet per decade after. Lastly, models that have been updated to use new information about how ocean facing ice cliffs erode, are showing much greater sea level rise and are more inline with Hansen, et al.
2
Global Warming, driven by the burning of fossil fuels and by some fossil fuel extraction (the release of methane by fracking for natural gas) is already killing millions, will be killing billions and will be with us for centuries. We can no longer stop Global Warming, but we can mitigate some of its effects.
Global Warming was first predicted in 1824, was observed in 1860, and was described scientifically in the 1960s. We might have done somethings to reduce Global Warming, but we didn’t. We didn’t, because fossil fuels provided the energy that made the undeniable benefits of the industrial revolution possible, and because of the resistance of the fossil fuel moguls. Now it’s too late.
We can still take steps to limit the harm which will be experienced by Americans. For example, we can build roads and railroads into areas that are likely to remain or to become arable. We can strengthen our building codes, so that our homes and factories will be able to withstand the wide spread fires and the more than hurricane strength winds that are expected. We can repair our dams and build new ones to prevent some of the otherwise inevitable floods. We can bury our power and communication cables. And, we can make the development and installation of individual renewable energy production devices our highest priority.
We can still act, but not if we wait much longer, because resources that we will need will soon be destroyed.
Global Warming was first predicted in 1824, was observed in 1860, and was described scientifically in the 1960s. We might have done somethings to reduce Global Warming, but we didn’t. We didn’t, because fossil fuels provided the energy that made the undeniable benefits of the industrial revolution possible, and because of the resistance of the fossil fuel moguls. Now it’s too late.
We can still take steps to limit the harm which will be experienced by Americans. For example, we can build roads and railroads into areas that are likely to remain or to become arable. We can strengthen our building codes, so that our homes and factories will be able to withstand the wide spread fires and the more than hurricane strength winds that are expected. We can repair our dams and build new ones to prevent some of the otherwise inevitable floods. We can bury our power and communication cables. And, we can make the development and installation of individual renewable energy production devices our highest priority.
We can still act, but not if we wait much longer, because resources that we will need will soon be destroyed.
4
Like almost all Times articles on climate change, the emphasis is on the future. That future assumes dramatic acceleration in the past and current change in things such as temperature and sea level. It would really be helpful if actual data (or links to same) accompanied these articles. Absent that, they resemble repeat versions of Solent Green: imagination rather than science.
3
Mr. Lowe,
Where have you been sleeping. Wake up and go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Where have you been sleeping. Wake up and go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
1
The problem is inherent to the human inability to distinguish emotionally
between what is locally detectable in the present and what can/will happen globally in the future. We are capable of investing emotional energy responding to the present but cannot harness comparable energy in planning to respond to a future crisis that is bigger than any other that the species has encountered in its history.
This paradox is a tragic design flaw in the makeup of the species homo sapiens that is evolutionary in origin since it optimized adaptation and survival in the short run. Intelligence enables the ability to analyze, imagine, and create in order to problem solve when there is a clear and explicit problem
that can be broken down into parts for solving.
This is not the nature of the climate change crisis, even at present, though not necessarily over the next 30 years.
One form that the design flaw takes is the spontaneous creation of a deeply irrational skepticism that expresses itself by trying to find
"reasons" or "explanations" to justify doing nothing in response to this crisis.
This type of denialism, which is now official American policy, is supported by
large numbers of citizens, who apparently need the constant reassurance that
some pseudo "hole" in "junk science" (a favorite term apparently) has been found and can be dismissed with no concern but much self satisfied hubris.
between what is locally detectable in the present and what can/will happen globally in the future. We are capable of investing emotional energy responding to the present but cannot harness comparable energy in planning to respond to a future crisis that is bigger than any other that the species has encountered in its history.
This paradox is a tragic design flaw in the makeup of the species homo sapiens that is evolutionary in origin since it optimized adaptation and survival in the short run. Intelligence enables the ability to analyze, imagine, and create in order to problem solve when there is a clear and explicit problem
that can be broken down into parts for solving.
This is not the nature of the climate change crisis, even at present, though not necessarily over the next 30 years.
One form that the design flaw takes is the spontaneous creation of a deeply irrational skepticism that expresses itself by trying to find
"reasons" or "explanations" to justify doing nothing in response to this crisis.
This type of denialism, which is now official American policy, is supported by
large numbers of citizens, who apparently need the constant reassurance that
some pseudo "hole" in "junk science" (a favorite term apparently) has been found and can be dismissed with no concern but much self satisfied hubris.
What disturbs me most is that changes are happening at the high end of conservative (as in cautious) projections made by scientists and this trend has continued for quite some time. My guess and fear is that this is going to go stupid a lot faster than any of us think or are comfortable contemplating and we should be preparing for the altered world we will grow old in and our Children inherit.
Take a look at a map of the United States and consider a couple of things:
1- How much of our population currently lives in coastal and near coastal areas. Many of those countless people and all they own will be displaced or threatened in the not too distant future.
2- How much critical & highly expensive infrastructure lies in areas vulnerable to rising sea levels and more intense weather. It is hard to have global trade when your port or airport is under water.
3- How much time, effort and money it will require to relocate millions of people away from the impacted areas. You cannot just drop a Million people in Omaha as they do not have the water systems, sewers, housing, power grid and all the rest needed to sustain them. This will become a constant as the inexorable rise of the oceans makes it an ever larger problem.
4- It is not just the direct coastal areas that will feel the impacts. The deltas of large rivers will be profoundly changed and they are often some of the most productive farmland we have.
Noah built the ark before the flood- not once the rain started to fall.
Take a look at a map of the United States and consider a couple of things:
1- How much of our population currently lives in coastal and near coastal areas. Many of those countless people and all they own will be displaced or threatened in the not too distant future.
2- How much critical & highly expensive infrastructure lies in areas vulnerable to rising sea levels and more intense weather. It is hard to have global trade when your port or airport is under water.
3- How much time, effort and money it will require to relocate millions of people away from the impacted areas. You cannot just drop a Million people in Omaha as they do not have the water systems, sewers, housing, power grid and all the rest needed to sustain them. This will become a constant as the inexorable rise of the oceans makes it an ever larger problem.
4- It is not just the direct coastal areas that will feel the impacts. The deltas of large rivers will be profoundly changed and they are often some of the most productive farmland we have.
Noah built the ark before the flood- not once the rain started to fall.
6
Americans and indeed our global ancestors have always had a survivor instinct. We take action when under threat. This propelled mass migrations in the past. Why is it on this Earth Day, almost 50 years after the first Earth Day in 1970, have we not really taken action? Is it simply we don't want to be inconvenienced? Do we not believe the science? What will it take to get our greatest minds working to solve our greatest problem? Why can't we commit to each other and to children's generations to take meaningful action to reduce climate change on this planet so that a colony on Mars is not our next migration.
Like the proverbial boiling frog, we live with the increasing disruption of climate change because (1) the change is at yet gradual, and (2) because the early warning apparatus of our media has been hijacked by corporate interests who have little to gain by alerting the public to the existential threat fossil fueled consumerism poses to long-term survival.
We cannot wait wait for future to happen--we have to design it cooperatively, so that we all like it.
Thank you,
Mr. Jan Jan Hearthstone.
Thank you,
Mr. Jan Jan Hearthstone.
Kahn states that (environmental) generational amnesia is a central psychological problem of our lifetime. In fact, it is the central feature of our existence.
Of course we can’t imagine what things were like, even shortly before we were born. Humans just don't live long enough to appreciate the changes that commonly occur over very short periods of geological time. The last ice age ended about 10 kya. To us it seems like much more than a very long time ago (500 generations), but it is really very recent, especially in the context of the extinction of the dinosaurs (66 mya), the origin of multicellular life (700-800 mya), or the age of the Earth (4.54 bya). In fact, things that happened just a few years before I was born (WW II), actually happened in someone else’s lifetime and might as well have been ancient history despite all the books I’ve read about it.
We simply live with only legends to guide us.
Of course we can’t imagine what things were like, even shortly before we were born. Humans just don't live long enough to appreciate the changes that commonly occur over very short periods of geological time. The last ice age ended about 10 kya. To us it seems like much more than a very long time ago (500 generations), but it is really very recent, especially in the context of the extinction of the dinosaurs (66 mya), the origin of multicellular life (700-800 mya), or the age of the Earth (4.54 bya). In fact, things that happened just a few years before I was born (WW II), actually happened in someone else’s lifetime and might as well have been ancient history despite all the books I’ve read about it.
We simply live with only legends to guide us.
1
Yes, human beings are extremely adept at ignoring things that we don't want to deal with. It is, unfortunately, human nature to repress awareness of and anxiety about situations that seem hopeless or unchangeable. However, millions of people are acting to lower their carbon dependence and to wake others up to the terror of the situation...and the fact that the worst is not yet inevitable.
Wherever you are reading this, there are people who are acting to avert climate catastrophe, and if you can't find them, you can find a thousand organizations online who would be grateful for your support. From the well known (Greenpeace and the Ocean Conservancy) to the cutting edge (2020 or Bust and Citizens' Climate Lobby) there is an organization you can join or contribute dollars to that is actively committed to averting climate disaster. It CAN be done, if enough of us are willing to do it.
And as the late environmentalist Edward Abbey pointed out, there is an immediate reward to doing something: “Action is the antidote to despair.”
Wherever you are reading this, there are people who are acting to avert climate catastrophe, and if you can't find them, you can find a thousand organizations online who would be grateful for your support. From the well known (Greenpeace and the Ocean Conservancy) to the cutting edge (2020 or Bust and Citizens' Climate Lobby) there is an organization you can join or contribute dollars to that is actively committed to averting climate disaster. It CAN be done, if enough of us are willing to do it.
And as the late environmentalist Edward Abbey pointed out, there is an immediate reward to doing something: “Action is the antidote to despair.”
1
Our obliviousness to climate change described in this essay is similar to the example of the frog placed in cold water then slowly heated to the point of boiling and death.
Frogs don't actually respond this way, you know.
1
More analytically inclined readers may have read Climate Change Doomed the Ancients (ERIC H. CLINE Prof. of Anthropology (MAY 27, 2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/opinion/climate-... in which a reputable professor of anthropology noted that “ . . .climate change has been leading to global conflict — and even the collapse of civilizations — for more than 3,000 years" The Late Bronze Age civilizations collapsed at the hands of Mother Nature. It remains to be seen >>if we will cause the collapse of our own<<< . . ."
Re the last two sentences, above: The first implicitly accepts the premise that Mother Nature caused the climate to change in ancient times, while the second involves the implicit assumption that we (humans) are now somehow able to control climate-- and, if properly motivated, could actually change its course.
In any event, if the ancients couldn’t forestall climate change, and we are now in a position to do so, we’ve come a long way toward becoming masters of the fate of the universe; and doubters thereof should be reminded that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” ( W.Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 …)
In any event, based on data available at nasa.com, the average decadal global average observed temperature for 2000-2009 (58.1)was an estimated 1.5 degrees (F) higher than that for the 1880’s(57.6). As to precisely why that was so , it seems fair to say we don't now know..
Re the last two sentences, above: The first implicitly accepts the premise that Mother Nature caused the climate to change in ancient times, while the second involves the implicit assumption that we (humans) are now somehow able to control climate-- and, if properly motivated, could actually change its course.
In any event, if the ancients couldn’t forestall climate change, and we are now in a position to do so, we’ve come a long way toward becoming masters of the fate of the universe; and doubters thereof should be reminded that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” ( W.Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 …)
In any event, based on data available at nasa.com, the average decadal global average observed temperature for 2000-2009 (58.1)was an estimated 1.5 degrees (F) higher than that for the 1880’s(57.6). As to precisely why that was so , it seems fair to say we don't now know..
As Gail Collins reminds us on today's NYT Op-Ed Page:
"Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, used to be head of Exxon Mobil. In that capacity, he once shared his outlook on battling climate change:
'What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?'”
What could make humanity suffer more than a setback to the profits of fossil fuel corporations and to the greed of both the executives running those corporations and their congressional enablers?
What greater threat to the freedom of the individual American citizen than mandates contrary to his/her desire, insofar as she/he can afford it, to utilize and waste energy resources? What patriotic American can possibly tolerate the enormity of having those new-fangled light bulbs forced upon us and our beloved incandescent light bulbs ripped from our soon to be cold, dead hands?
Next thing we know mandates will dominate us at every turn. It wouldn't surprise me if states would soon demand that every motor vehicle carry automobile insurance. Or that hunters and fishermen be licensed. Or even automobile drivers!
Our frontier spirit--our rugged individualism--is under severe threat.
What possible good could come from that?
"Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, used to be head of Exxon Mobil. In that capacity, he once shared his outlook on battling climate change:
'What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?'”
What could make humanity suffer more than a setback to the profits of fossil fuel corporations and to the greed of both the executives running those corporations and their congressional enablers?
What greater threat to the freedom of the individual American citizen than mandates contrary to his/her desire, insofar as she/he can afford it, to utilize and waste energy resources? What patriotic American can possibly tolerate the enormity of having those new-fangled light bulbs forced upon us and our beloved incandescent light bulbs ripped from our soon to be cold, dead hands?
Next thing we know mandates will dominate us at every turn. It wouldn't surprise me if states would soon demand that every motor vehicle carry automobile insurance. Or that hunters and fishermen be licensed. Or even automobile drivers!
Our frontier spirit--our rugged individualism--is under severe threat.
What possible good could come from that?
2
This article makes some excellent points about climate change and the psychology of desensitization that allows humans to accept destructive changes in the environment. But in looking at the psychology that has led to disinterest and inaction, it is odd to ignore this fact: for large swaths of the US population the present effects of climate change have brought pleasant changes in day to day life. No longer does the winter trudge on unmercifully freezing us and the ground. Regular climbs into the 50s and 60s have made DAY TO DAY life better. Not to mention the elderly who have now gone through half the Midwest winters of the last decade without the dread of a fall on ice constraining their activities over a quarter of the year. It's such a nice catastrophe for many. Ignoring that fact makes it more difficult to avoid the inevitable horror.
1
Of course, it also means that the summers often become unbearable if you aren't near the shore. Here in Pennsylvania, it also means that the tick popullation (just as one example) has exploded, and along with it tick-borne diseases, which have spread like wildfire here. One can no longer safely walk through the woods without worrying that you will get bitten and come down with limes disease. The problem is that people don't see these connections - or don't wish to.
1
A 200 ft rise in sea level is not such a WAG. If ALL the earth's ice were to melt that is about what we would get. In the past the earth was ice free for a considerable time. It could happen again.
4
Water also expands with increased temperature. Please look a globe and think about this fact.
Very nice writing. Thank you. As a San Franciscan, ever aware and appreciative of the geographical beauty of this fair city and its fragility, the stark but dystopian beauty of Buritto Justice's map and your deliciously written and insightful comments on human nature has given me much food for thought. The Giving Tree indeed. See you at Cape Dolores.
5
Mans greatest strength is his (and hers) ability to adapt. But, as this article suggests, it may be our greatest weakness as well.
And still individuals carp about how high the waters will rise. Interestingly, even the deniers are now retrenching behind arguments about how high the sea level will rise - an example of adaptation in it's own right.
Science fiction writers, who would have been called soothsayers in previous times have been describing a dystopian future for years. As water wars break out and severe weather events ('nuisance flooding ') increase, we are going to be living these visions. Great article.
And still individuals carp about how high the waters will rise. Interestingly, even the deniers are now retrenching behind arguments about how high the sea level will rise - an example of adaptation in it's own right.
Science fiction writers, who would have been called soothsayers in previous times have been describing a dystopian future for years. As water wars break out and severe weather events ('nuisance flooding ') increase, we are going to be living these visions. Great article.
5
and this week reported in the same newspaper....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/business/suv-automakers-fuel-economy-...
no hope.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/business/suv-automakers-fuel-economy-...
no hope.
7
This essay is reminiscent to me of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, where she points out how difficult it is to explain freedom to those who have never really felt it. That sense of knowing something bigger and better might be there, but also of being unable to observe the hole left over in the space it once occupied. It is only a hole in the minds of those who held it, but since there is no hole in reality, newer humans move on.
Elizabeth Kolbert touched on this idea, too, in the Sixth Extinction, where she is sitting at the edge of the reef on One Tree Island, being simultaneously aware of the vastness of the ocean before her, but also that that feeling is what tricks us into complacency, of feeling that we are alone and ineffective, when in fact we are so numerous as to be a scourge on the earth.
We must live in the reality we inhabit. We must refuse to look away from what we know of the past through our own experience, but also through the accounts of those who came before us. We must acknowledge our collective wrongs, and each take responsibility for more than our part. If we fail, we condemn ourselves to our own future (and present) condemnations.
Elizabeth Kolbert touched on this idea, too, in the Sixth Extinction, where she is sitting at the edge of the reef on One Tree Island, being simultaneously aware of the vastness of the ocean before her, but also that that feeling is what tricks us into complacency, of feeling that we are alone and ineffective, when in fact we are so numerous as to be a scourge on the earth.
We must live in the reality we inhabit. We must refuse to look away from what we know of the past through our own experience, but also through the accounts of those who came before us. We must acknowledge our collective wrongs, and each take responsibility for more than our part. If we fail, we condemn ourselves to our own future (and present) condemnations.
13
Just a note that the geography of an isolated San Francisco Island did occur in the past. The entire valley area extending from South San Francisco to Daly City was a water filled body. When you stand above this valley you are standing on ancient shore. This is known as the "Colma Strait" and existed approximately 100,000 years ago.
http://www.sanandreasfault.org/Geology%20of%20the%20Golden%20Gate%20Head...
And BTW ..yes climate change is a real threat
http://www.sanandreasfault.org/Geology%20of%20the%20Golden%20Gate%20Head...
And BTW ..yes climate change is a real threat
4
We living in a dynamic, ever changing world. Humans have been adapting for 10's of thousands of years. Why do we expect the future to be any different?
4
The global nature of the change, the much greater speed at which this is happening, the costs in a more crowded world, and "leaders" who are profiteering instead of leading adaptation in the public interest are going to make this more difficult and painful for millions of ordinary people.
4
"Why do we expect the future to be any different?" Adaptation happens slowly. We don't have enough time to adapt to say, a methane-dominant atmosphere, for example, or the acidification of the oceans and how that will affect all of life, not just coral and fish. Since all life is interconnected on this planet, accelerated massive change in one area may not be something the rest of our ecology will adapt to. There is no guarantee, in other words, that humans will survive this. Microbes, maybe. Some other small species. But larger mammals?
Folks. I would suggest that "wmar," the commenter above, doesn't exist. It's an acronym for a troll, possibly paid by some denial forum, possibly living in his parents' basement.
None of his arguments or "facts" have any degree of credibility, The only people who would take him or it seriously are other climate change deniers, and nothing you say will change their minds.
So don't waste time, energy and emotions arguing with this nonentity. It may well be that the whole point of his posts are to get you to do just that — waste time, energy and emotion that you could spend spreading information, rather than trying to counter obvious disinformation.
None of his arguments or "facts" have any degree of credibility, The only people who would take him or it seriously are other climate change deniers, and nothing you say will change their minds.
So don't waste time, energy and emotions arguing with this nonentity. It may well be that the whole point of his posts are to get you to do just that — waste time, energy and emotion that you could spend spreading information, rather than trying to counter obvious disinformation.
21
"...I worry it’s reckless to inject any more false facts into a conversation...". "False facts"? Seems like I heard about those recently. I was born in 1961 and am well educated and I've only just learned these existed.
1
You make a good point. There is no such thing.
The alternative to a fact is a falsehood, a lie, or a fiction.
The alternative to a fact is a falsehood, a lie, or a fiction.
1
To RC: overpopulation is only half the problem. Maybe a bigger problem is overconsumption and wrong consumption.
This planet overfull of human beings, all of whom want a North American lifestyle: large house, several large cars, meat-heavy diet, plastic and disposable everything, chronic wars and conflicts poisoning the air, soil, and water, denying science, etc. etc.
And more of these human beings have the means to buy these items and others grow rich on mass producing them cheaply and with great environmental loss.
What steps is each one of us taking every day to live an environmentally better lifestyle?
An overpopulated planet that lives with a small eco footprint consumption culture has a better chance of survival than a smaller population with an insatiable appetite for resources. Some of the worst environmental impact has been from small-population, low-population density societies.
There is no Planet B
This planet overfull of human beings, all of whom want a North American lifestyle: large house, several large cars, meat-heavy diet, plastic and disposable everything, chronic wars and conflicts poisoning the air, soil, and water, denying science, etc. etc.
And more of these human beings have the means to buy these items and others grow rich on mass producing them cheaply and with great environmental loss.
What steps is each one of us taking every day to live an environmentally better lifestyle?
An overpopulated planet that lives with a small eco footprint consumption culture has a better chance of survival than a smaller population with an insatiable appetite for resources. Some of the worst environmental impact has been from small-population, low-population density societies.
There is no Planet B
29
Whatever the author is moaning about is not as bad as natural climate change that has occurred in the past. Read this article about the "little ice age" for some perspective. We are spoiled to have lived in a golden age.
http://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-consequences
http://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-consequences
Wrong: https://skepticalscience.com/A-detailed-look-at-the-Little-Ice-Age.html
As for history, here's the long view. I assume you don't want to go back hundreds of thousands of years to an inhospitable planet? We live in an extraordinarily hospitable interval of our globe's long history.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php
(see first and second graphics, the latter has the recent records added on)
Fake skeptics are fond of making a cutoff in the last 10 or 15 years to show a slight decrease since the 1998-99 el nino and ignore the recent strong increases.
As for history, here's the long view. I assume you don't want to go back hundreds of thousands of years to an inhospitable planet? We live in an extraordinarily hospitable interval of our globe's long history.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php
(see first and second graphics, the latter has the recent records added on)
Fake skeptics are fond of making a cutoff in the last 10 or 15 years to show a slight decrease since the 1998-99 el nino and ignore the recent strong increases.
12
Last time atmospheric CO2 was at 400 PPM was 3 million years ago, when sea level was 20 feet higher. The reason we know that climate has always changed is because scientists have been analyzing the geologic record in detail for over two centuries. What is clear from this body of work is that CO2 is a main driver of climate. We have extracted carbon that was sequestered in geologic formations for millions to hundreds of millions of years in a matter of a couple of centuries and injected it back into the atmosphere. There is no Cenozoic analog to what is happening now in the geologic record with the exception of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum 56 million years ago and even that event took many centuries to millennia to unfold.
5
You want me to read one article. I want you to listen to 99% of scientists. if it was your heart health or cancer you'd side with the 99% because you want to live. it's really not that complicated
1
How do we live with climate change? We admit it from bottom to top. Its happening and were making it worse. Then we innovate.
14
No thought of cutting back? I guess that's just unthinkable.
1
We did innovate, and solar panels and wind turbines are the result. But there are vested interests with massive sunk costs in fossil fuels. And these vested interests control the government.
1
Reminds me of how personal freedom and privacy have been eroded in this country.It has been slow and traumatic and doesn't seem many people noticed.
13
Freedom and privacy TO DO WHAT? Own slaves? Pour toxic waste in the river? Sexually abuse women and children? Shoot your neighbor? Poison the atmosphere and ground water? In a civilized society, there many things that you should not have "freedom" to do.
1
Great narrative with lots of examples of climate impacts occurring today that per the consensus scientific view are at least partly the result of human CO2 emissions. Much worse to come unfortunately.
What many don't realize is that the Paris Climate Accord that entered into force on Nov 4, 2016 based on a threshold approval, has, to put it mildly, serious deficiencies.
The agreement in part includes the following goals or terms:
1) The 194 nations that signed the accord (to date 143 have actually ratified it, including the US) intend to hold the increase in global avg temp to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit this to 1.5°C .
2) The agreement maintains a voluntary system of pledges, known as "INDCs" (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) under which each country submits its own goals and plan to limit its greenhouse gas emissions.
3) China, the world's largest emitter, has pledged that their CO2 emissions would peak no later than 2030.
4) The US intends to achieve a reduction in GHG emissions of at least 26% below its 2005 level in 2025 - and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%.
5) The Pledges are “promises”, but there is no legal mechanism to enforce them.
6) Based on a review by climate scientists, if nations meet their promises to date, the world is still expected to warm 3.5°C, far above the 1.5-2°C goal.
So the accord may make us feel better until we look at the details. And we know trump doesn't care.
What many don't realize is that the Paris Climate Accord that entered into force on Nov 4, 2016 based on a threshold approval, has, to put it mildly, serious deficiencies.
The agreement in part includes the following goals or terms:
1) The 194 nations that signed the accord (to date 143 have actually ratified it, including the US) intend to hold the increase in global avg temp to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit this to 1.5°C .
2) The agreement maintains a voluntary system of pledges, known as "INDCs" (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) under which each country submits its own goals and plan to limit its greenhouse gas emissions.
3) China, the world's largest emitter, has pledged that their CO2 emissions would peak no later than 2030.
4) The US intends to achieve a reduction in GHG emissions of at least 26% below its 2005 level in 2025 - and to make best efforts to reduce its emissions by 28%.
5) The Pledges are “promises”, but there is no legal mechanism to enforce them.
6) Based on a review by climate scientists, if nations meet their promises to date, the world is still expected to warm 3.5°C, far above the 1.5-2°C goal.
So the accord may make us feel better until we look at the details. And we know trump doesn't care.
7
Climate change and its social, economic and political impacts are real. But those who seek to warn us, and to refute the denialists, also need to be careful about their own facts. Mooallem writes, "Consider the mass starvation in South Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen and Somalia, where a total of nearly a million and a half children are predicted to die this year — and that climate change is projected to worsen the kind of droughts that caused it." That's not correct, because only in one of those countries (Somalia) is drought implicated as (part) cause of famine. In the other three, it's war. Neither is it overpopulation: Ethiopia, with 100 million people, suffered drought but avoided famine because of economic development and effective emergency responses, unlike 40-50 years ago when it had a small population, was much poorer and worse governed. Climate change is a HUGE problem but it is not the cause of every ill.
3
This is wrong. Climate has been a threat multiplier and the wars are partly to do with that. This has been explained elsewhere and is well documented. Here's a quick look, incomplete, but a little research will lead to the facts, not one person's opinion:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/magazine/how-a-warming-planet-drives-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/magazine/how-a-warming-planet-drives-...
10
In some part, we are all responsible for contributing to global climate change by our conspicuous and wasteful lifestyles. "I want my mine now" is a common refrain of the business establishment and the up and comers. The older generations appear to be downloading the devastating effects of climate change on the younger generations as they did with the national debt. "Passing the buck" now defines our once great country.
6
I just sent this article to 3 of my grandchildren: 22, 16 and 16. I wonder if they will read it. Deny it? Laugh at it? Consider it?
Sea levels rise at exactly the same rate as in Abraham Lincoln's time, actual measurements of actual sea levels in the actual NYC show. There is a floater gauge measuring levels for 150 years at the Battery.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=...
Same anywhere around the world. Even since George Washington's time. Follow that NOAA link for ALL available measurements.
See all long term measurements here
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~fbuon/PGEOG_334/BnC/Lecture_pdfs/jcr_dea...
with the peer reviewed conclusion
"Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S.
tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each
time period we consider, the records show small decelerations
that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of
worldwide-gauge records."
So, how can you live with rising waters?
Remember that in your 7th grade you learned to read a graph, and look at the actual NOAA sea level measurements. They show no influence of the 1000 times growth in emissions in the last 150 years at all.
If you LOOK at data, rather than ignore it and talk and get scared, you will be more of a scientist than all the previous administration put together.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=...
Same anywhere around the world. Even since George Washington's time. Follow that NOAA link for ALL available measurements.
See all long term measurements here
http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~fbuon/PGEOG_334/BnC/Lecture_pdfs/jcr_dea...
with the peer reviewed conclusion
"Our analyses do not indicate acceleration in sea level in U.S.
tide gauge records during the 20th century. Instead, for each
time period we consider, the records show small decelerations
that are consistent with a number of earlier studies of
worldwide-gauge records."
So, how can you live with rising waters?
Remember that in your 7th grade you learned to read a graph, and look at the actual NOAA sea level measurements. They show no influence of the 1000 times growth in emissions in the last 150 years at all.
If you LOOK at data, rather than ignore it and talk and get scared, you will be more of a scientist than all the previous administration put together.
6
Most of the ice melt impacts so far are from Arctic Ice melting (which doesn't affect sea level), sea water expansion, which is the majority impact to date, and continental mountain glacier melting, which also does impact sea level that much. What is NOW happening, is that continental glaciers are starting to melt, and that is what is leading to projections of an acceleration of sea level rise. What you probably don't know is that most of the increase in CO2 has occurred since 1960 so looking at the last 150 years of emissions growth is meaningless in this context. Natural systems do not react instantaneously to changes, so the projection discussed in this paper has to be viewed in that context.
4
Andy, what you are missing is that the rate of change of the rate of change in sea level rise is zero.
In other words, if you faced with Darian's tide gauge data, devoid of dates (or, for that matter, with dates) you would not be able to identify when AGW started. Heck, you wouldn't be able to conclude it exists.
In other words, if you faced with Darian's tide gauge data, devoid of dates (or, for that matter, with dates) you would not be able to identify when AGW started. Heck, you wouldn't be able to conclude it exists.
2
Jeff Guinn - No, I am not missing anything. As I said, natural systems do not react instantaneously to inputs and most of the CO2 has been input in the last 6 decades. The most conservative projections by glaciologists who study Greenland and Antarctica is that the rate of increase is going to be non-zero this century. Besides, we know with great certainty that the last time CO2 was at 400 ppm, sea levels were 20 feet higher. Also remember that sea level rise is not the only indicator of anthropogenic climate change. Temperature data from all over the planet demonstrate that.
I would also point out that this paper is but one on the subject and other work shows an upward trending curve (aka acceleration:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level)
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/11/E1434
http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts...
The paper from PNAS looks back centuries and compared to previous centuries, the 20th century dwarfs sea level changes going back to the first century.
I would also point out that this paper is but one on the subject and other work shows an upward trending curve (aka acceleration:
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-level)
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/11/E1434
http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts...
The paper from PNAS looks back centuries and compared to previous centuries, the 20th century dwarfs sea level changes going back to the first century.
3
We are performing a global science experiment and we don't understand how everything works normally to really understand the consequences of our actions. We are not just changing one variable but many variables and don't understand the intricacies of the interactions where life is a web and pulling on one strand has unforeseen consequences. The Northwest has seen dramatic changes in our weather that are probably reflections of climate change and we now have unrecognizable seasons that affect our daily lives. Ask any gardener and they will tell you of not knowing when to plant or if they can plant given the vagaries of rain that totally saturates the soil and groundwater table at the surface and Douglas fir trees sitting in water.
Climate change is here. Greenland's glaciers are melting and we have done nothing. Yes, nothing. We are the frogs slowly cooking to death because the water is slowly heating in the pot. Sometimes I wonder if Mars once had people and they destroyed the planet's life in pursuit of money and power, unable to value the good fortune of being on a beautiful planet.
Climate change is here. Greenland's glaciers are melting and we have done nothing. Yes, nothing. We are the frogs slowly cooking to death because the water is slowly heating in the pot. Sometimes I wonder if Mars once had people and they destroyed the planet's life in pursuit of money and power, unable to value the good fortune of being on a beautiful planet.
6
The author worries about injecting false facts. Then she spends a substantial fraction of her essay on the false fact of a 200-foot increase in sea level occurring over 60 years. But there has been no recent acceleration in the sea level increase of about 3 cm/decade, which works out to one foot per century. The Dutch have been able to overcome this minor engineering problem for a century or two.
1
The author is clear about the fictional basis for the opening of this article and the discussion. The facts are clearly presented and the fiction carefully described.
That said, if, as is likely, we are melting all the ice on the planet, whether it takes 300 years or 10,000, history shows an increase just over 200 feet. Rational projects run 2 to 6 feet by 2100, with some rational support for 10-11 feet. Plenty to worry about.
I have pictures of sea level rise in Boston, and it is accelerating recently.
That said, if, as is likely, we are melting all the ice on the planet, whether it takes 300 years or 10,000, history shows an increase just over 200 feet. Rational projects run 2 to 6 feet by 2100, with some rational support for 10-11 feet. Plenty to worry about.
I have pictures of sea level rise in Boston, and it is accelerating recently.
5
What the author has done is called "apophasis", a rhetorical device wherein the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up.
So she does the scary-scary while denying it. Perfect for a propaganda piece.
So she does the scary-scary while denying it. Perfect for a propaganda piece.
Funny, clever and true...."it won't feel funny anytime soon." Especially because we as a species just don't get it; our species is very smart and very dumb---and very superstitious. The 1% like oil that is not in the ground and an eternal increase in consumers. The 99% like comfort and material stuff and heaven. But more than anything, the 99% like babies and that's the real problem---we can have too much of a good thing. Our species is what it is---we are not green by nature, so less of us is the solution, no matter how inconvenient. A one-child world is the priority now, but even the author of this piece doesn't get it.
"carried our first baby up the stairs"
"carried our first baby up the stairs"
22
If you read Montaigne, Essays, book1, XXX "On Cannibals," you will learn that the "Great Flood" (Noah's) changed the geography of many parts of the world.
(Yes, I, too, wonder what floods have to do with cannibals -- I guess if one is hungry enough one will eat anything... but that's not the point of thiw digression in the essay. (I am beginning to wonder what the purpose of essay writing (.e.g articles like this one) is in anycase. BY the way is the reference to Washington DC ? in which case please add those explanatory letters behind the word. (I will be dead by then but once the hudson overflows the Westside highway... it can act inititally as a wading pool and later on as something else.
Eat chicken and stop thinking you are vituous if you eat fish!!
(Yes, I, too, wonder what floods have to do with cannibals -- I guess if one is hungry enough one will eat anything... but that's not the point of thiw digression in the essay. (I am beginning to wonder what the purpose of essay writing (.e.g articles like this one) is in anycase. BY the way is the reference to Washington DC ? in which case please add those explanatory letters behind the word. (I will be dead by then but once the hudson overflows the Westside highway... it can act inititally as a wading pool and later on as something else.
Eat chicken and stop thinking you are vituous if you eat fish!!
Huh?
4
Simply, awesomely written. Every city that values its preservation must cast bronze statue-like markers of where things are, throughout their districts, so that generation over generation can witness the markers and measures of change, like the wall markings of a child's growth. We must provide to one generation after the next, a clear history, and call to arms against this dystopian future for the sake of our our children, and their descendants. Thank you for the clarity of your message!
7
Good idea. Probably won't work. Weren't there villages in Japan that put up monuments at the level where a tsunami came many years ago? And vast amounts of buildings and infrastructure and many many people were lost in the most recent one because the land below those marker was so useful and attractive. Human nature will be the death of us all.
Important clarification: the food security emergencies in NE Nigeria, Yemen and South Sudan are driven primarily by CONFLICT, not drought. In Somalia, drought is the main driver. Visit www.fews.net to learn more.
I suggest reading more broadly. There is strong evidence of food supply contributions to the various conflicts, including another article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/magazine/how-a-warming-planet-drives-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/magazine/how-a-warming-planet-drives-...
5
Another fine article in this week's climate series. Though it starts out with a fictional premise, it moves on to presenting facts and the discussion of generational forgetfulness is interesting. We now compare the present to a more recent past, and forget earlier norms.
200 feet is an interesting figure, because in fact in the various full ice melts in distant history were a bit over 200 feet, and you can see traces of this in various locations if you look for them. 216 feet, according to this NatGeo article, which also provides illustrations: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-...
Personally, I think it will be less than two decades before the consequences will be undeniable to the most resistant intelligence. Among other things, I worry about the breakdown of the power grid. Even now, there are more weeks long power outages in extreme weather.
Some of that may be more reporting, but that easy access to information also blinds us to news that is not covered, like the recent floods in Iran and Azerbaijan, and South America (one of those was reported). There have been extremes in Chile that are affecting some of our food prices, but causing a devastating water crisis for people who live and farm there.
Even without government misbehavior (Venezuela, Washington DC) we will have trouble.
200 feet is an interesting figure, because in fact in the various full ice melts in distant history were a bit over 200 feet, and you can see traces of this in various locations if you look for them. 216 feet, according to this NatGeo article, which also provides illustrations: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-...
Personally, I think it will be less than two decades before the consequences will be undeniable to the most resistant intelligence. Among other things, I worry about the breakdown of the power grid. Even now, there are more weeks long power outages in extreme weather.
Some of that may be more reporting, but that easy access to information also blinds us to news that is not covered, like the recent floods in Iran and Azerbaijan, and South America (one of those was reported). There have been extremes in Chile that are affecting some of our food prices, but causing a devastating water crisis for people who live and farm there.
Even without government misbehavior (Venezuela, Washington DC) we will have trouble.
15
Except NOAA's actual data disagrees and NOAA states:
" ... average global sea level rise rate of 1.7-1.8 mm/yr." (Although they hide this well deep in the site - it was on page 1, but it did not fit the narrative of doom, so it was buried.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/slrmap.htm
Read into the first paragraph under the graphic, it is easy to see that there is no sea level disaster now or threatened by 20172 (or at all) (from climate change). Even as measured by NOAA, source very-reliable for fearing and exclaiming the effects of steric sea level rise.
" ... average global sea level rise rate of 1.7-1.8 mm/yr." (Although they hide this well deep in the site - it was on page 1, but it did not fit the narrative of doom, so it was buried.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/slrmap.htm
Read into the first paragraph under the graphic, it is easy to see that there is no sea level disaster now or threatened by 20172 (or at all) (from climate change). Even as measured by NOAA, source very-reliable for fearing and exclaiming the effects of steric sea level rise.
7
wmar, as he often does, misrepresents and misreads his source.
Nor does he accurately represent the very real and moderate views of NOAA, where the real expertise resides.
Here's another link. I live in Boston, and though there are now more overflows at king tides than there used to be, so far the increase has been minute and gradual. It is, however, based on 35 years of residence and photographs, most definitively increased. What is more bothersome is that we are on the cusp of an acceleration. "The mean sea level trend is 2.79 millimeters/year." Extended in a straight line would be nice, but that's not what is happening.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=...
Nor does he accurately represent the very real and moderate views of NOAA, where the real expertise resides.
Here's another link. I live in Boston, and though there are now more overflows at king tides than there used to be, so far the increase has been minute and gradual. It is, however, based on 35 years of residence and photographs, most definitively increased. What is more bothersome is that we are on the cusp of an acceleration. "The mean sea level trend is 2.79 millimeters/year." Extended in a straight line would be nice, but that's not what is happening.
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=...
22
Perhaps I am wrong, but I looked over the site you cited and could not find any
reference to projections to 2072. The data presented on page 1
was focusing only upon sea level changes through 2015 (not 2015-2072) only (beginning at different years in the past as the tables clearly indicate) with
no reference (that I could locate) to anything beyond 2015.
In addition, the discussion at
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
presents no extrapolations and makes no reference to effects due
to collapsing ice sheets in Greenland or the Antarctica.
So I do not understand the basis for your interpretation that this data
suggests no basis for panic, let alone concern, for the next half century.
reference to projections to 2072. The data presented on page 1
was focusing only upon sea level changes through 2015 (not 2015-2072) only (beginning at different years in the past as the tables clearly indicate) with
no reference (that I could locate) to anything beyond 2015.
In addition, the discussion at
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
presents no extrapolations and makes no reference to effects due
to collapsing ice sheets in Greenland or the Antarctica.
So I do not understand the basis for your interpretation that this data
suggests no basis for panic, let alone concern, for the next half century.
3
Take another look at your source data -- these are HISTORIC TRENDS, not forecasts, Those trends do note take expected green house gas levels or climate change, ice melting and the like, into account at all.
Those data are totally irrelevant to the subvect of this article.
Those data are totally irrelevant to the subvect of this article.
3
The root cause of all global environmental problems including any effect of humans on the climate of the planet is overpopulation, but there is no political or religious leadership to address it. Climate change will turn out to be less significant than acidification of the oceans, which will affect all life on the planet. Humans have chosen quantity over quality, despite the availability of ways to limit the population, and in the face of long-standing warnings from ecologists and other scientists. The inevitable results are toxic pollution including birth defects and genotoxicity, disease, warfare, and massive social upheaval.
94
I would agree that over-population is a huge problem, but so is over-consumption.
A comparison I read: "19.5 million residents of New York State consume as much energy as the 800 million in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa)" (Fatih Birol, chief economist International Energy Agency)
Combined with a staggering population explosion:
"It is estimated that the world population reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It was another 123 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to reach three billion in 1960. (Wikipedia).
In the face of that, the Trump policy to defund ANY agency that uses US gov. funds for family planning advice (mind you, 'advice' not abortion) is suicidal.
In simplistic terms we rich need to stop wasting/consuming, all need a 1-2 child policy + 25 year marriage limit, much like the successful 1-child policy China followed for 25 years. How to implement that in the face of interest groups + greed ???- - Common sense does not seem to be reigning most political and religious leaders.
A comparison I read: "19.5 million residents of New York State consume as much energy as the 800 million in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa)" (Fatih Birol, chief economist International Energy Agency)
Combined with a staggering population explosion:
"It is estimated that the world population reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It was another 123 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to reach three billion in 1960. (Wikipedia).
In the face of that, the Trump policy to defund ANY agency that uses US gov. funds for family planning advice (mind you, 'advice' not abortion) is suicidal.
In simplistic terms we rich need to stop wasting/consuming, all need a 1-2 child policy + 25 year marriage limit, much like the successful 1-child policy China followed for 25 years. How to implement that in the face of interest groups + greed ???- - Common sense does not seem to be reigning most political and religious leaders.
3
What are you talking about.. the western civilation population is in decline as a result of industrialization. If you want less population industrialize the third world. And do us all a favor stop pretending to know what the future will be in 100 years much less 10. See level rise of a 2-3 cm in the last 20 years, temperature trends that are manipulated to make the 1930s great dust bowl a cool period. And stop claiming unusual climate events are a result of agw. Using your hyperbolic synonyms we are in a global cooling phase. Greenland ice sheets are having record growth. Record number of north atlantic icebergs and snow in the Sahara, Iraq, Turkey. Are you kidding using the Outer Banks of North Carolina as a Cherry picked data point of sea level rise???
1
I disagree. Within this century, we are going to see mass dislocations of population due to drought on one hand, and sea level rise on the other. What has happened in Syria is just a taste of what's coming. I am in my late 50s and I expect to live long enough to see large portions of South Florida and Louisiana become uninhabitable.
The horrifying prospect is that rapid climate change, which we are no doubt heading into, will have very negative consequences for the world's population. Our planet already cannot sustain the number of people on it. The world's population may well decline over the next couple of centuries, but it will be a painful process with mass suffering, at the rate we are going.
The horrifying prospect is that rapid climate change, which we are no doubt heading into, will have very negative consequences for the world's population. Our planet already cannot sustain the number of people on it. The world's population may well decline over the next couple of centuries, but it will be a painful process with mass suffering, at the rate we are going.
3
The reality right now is there's too many people. Let's work on that problem instead.