Climate Disaster

The Guardian reports that Kofi Annan’s think-tank has calculated that 300,000 people DIE each year from climate change. If you take the world’s poorest people and look at how they are affected by the changes over the last 50 years in the climate, I guess that’s a reasonable calculation.

I wouldn’t call it a “disaster” yet though… a true disaster would affect everyone in the world, just not the poorest, and I see that happening in 20 to 40 years. Basically we’ll face the same problems the world’s poor are facing now in regions susceptible to climate change, except 10 times worse. The oceans are turning to acid, so in 30 years there will be no fish. The hotter weather means water evaporates faster from soil, causing more drought… meaning there could be massive food shortages. But the main “disaster” will be after climate change really accelerates when the Siberian and Arctic Permafrost releases a bunch of methane after heating up. That’s when the atmosphere will change. Don’t believe the atmosphere can become un-breathable? Well it already happened before… 250 million years ago.

I agree since the US is still talking about reducing emissions to 1990 levels, when by 2020 it will already be too late, because the Siberian permafrost will have started melting and methane emissions will be increasing out of control.  Notice that Siberia has the worst heat increase according to Nasa and that the methane increase is probably due to Siberian wetlands releasing the gas.

And there is a lot of gas yet to be released.

In 2020, we’ll see if we’re still talking about 1990 levels… I think we’ll be talking about world-wide starvation and our food supply being completely destroyed in the following 20 years by 2040… not about reducing carbon emissions.

I remember seeing the movie in theatres.  When I went, I was only one of five people in the theatre.

It’s too bad so few people know about how close the electric car was to being accepted as a superior alternative to gasoline vehicles.  If you haven’t seen the movie it’s a MUST SEE movie, and it still seems to be on Google Video:



There’s still people who have these awesome cars, and others who convert their own.  If you’re concerned about the climate and thinking of buying a new car… don’t.  Convert your existing car to electric… that’s my plan when I have enough money.

The EPA can now regulate carbon emissions, so it’s time for action if you’re the type of person who leaves your computer.

People may assume that since Democrats have a majority in Congress, hand-outs to the energy industry are coming to the end.

The latest [American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009] bill “makes a mockery of our common understanding of ‘renewable energy,’
favoring dirty smokestacks over truly clean, renewable energy.” - article

I think this article is important to understand Obama’s climate policy position. The main point is that if it doesn’t bother industry, climate legislation is ok:

Obama aides last week suggested that much of the fees for exceeding carbon emissions caps might be given to factory owners and power companies if that’s what it takes to gain their support for the proposal. During the campaign, Obama called for the fees to be used for alternative energy technology and middle-class tax cuts.

This is horrible news.  Giving money to coal/car companies to research to research pie-in-the-sky technology like clean coal and hydrogen cars (electric cars are way better and actually work)… seems ridiculous.  So basically, you fee polluters for exceeding emission caps, then with that money, you then… give back the money to the original polluters.  That policy would make no sense.

I’m not a big fan of Cap and Trade since in practice in the EU there are lot of ways companies can game the system to get out of paying for emissions.

Yet even the current modest proposal is being opposed heavily by oil,coal and old-energy front-groups.  Since we only have 10 years before climate change starts accelerating out-of-control, it seems a little late for a cap-and-trade system that plans to make progress by 2030.

After a long hiatus, I plan to start updating this blog again.

I’m a programmer so now for all my current blogs I’m writing web aggregators that will help me retrieve and organize content related to the topic at hand (in this case Climate change)… Then I can quickly update my blog  about the latest news/research/content that’s making its way around the web and hopefully give my two cents on it.

My two cents is we’re all going to die from total ecosystem collapse in the next 40 years…. and I’ve stay pretty consistent on that theme here.    Maybe I should rename the blog to Climate Apocalypse?

I hope articles like this get more media attention. Recent scientific data suggests that the earth’s ecosystem is heading for complete and total failure to support current life on earth. George Monbiot summarizes the situation better than anyone:

Is it too late? To say so is to make it true. To suggest there is nothing that can be done is to ensure that nothing is done. But even a resolute optimist like me finds hope ever harder to summon. A new summary of the science published since last year’s Intergovernmental Panel report suggests that - almost a century ahead of schedule - the critical climate processes might have begun.

Just a year ago the Intergovernmental Panel warned that the Arctic’s “late-summer sea ice is projected to disappear almost completely towards the end of the 21st century … in some models.” But, as the new report by the Public Interest Research Centre (Pirc) shows, climate scientists are now predicting the end of late-summer sea ice within three to seven years. The trajectory of current melting plummets through the graphs like a meteorite falling to earth.

Forget the sodding polar bears: this is about all of us. As the ice disappears, the region becomes darker, which means that it absorbs more heat. A recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters shows that the extra warming caused by disappearing sea ice penetrates 1,000 miles inland, covering almost the entire region of continuous permafrost. Arctic permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the entire global atmosphere. It remains safe for as long as the ground stays frozen. But the melting has begun. Methane gushers are now gassing out of some places with such force that they keep the water open in Arctic lakes through the winter.

The effects of melting permafrost are not incorporated in any global climate models. Runaway warming in the Arctic alone could flip the entire planet into a new climatic state. The Middle Climate could collapse faster and sooner than the grimmest forecasts proposed. - Link

It cannot be stressed enough that the 400 gigatons of methane is on the verge of being released WHEN the permafrost melts. It looks like it’s already starting. George Monbiot is the only one in the media who seems realize the consequences of that happening… the end of human civilization.

As a result of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the oceans are turning more acidic. As a recent study shows, the lowered PH is having a devastating effect on marine ecosystems already:

Ecologists at the University of Chicago tracked the acidity of the Pacific off an island close to Washington state over the course of eight years. Their results, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the waters here are becoming acidic 10 times more quickly than had been predicted using other models. Their data also shows that populations of mussels—key animals in that ecosystem—are declining rapidly as the ocean becomes less alkaline. - Scientific American

Most of the animals living in the ocean nowadays have evolved under stable conditions over millions of years. A sudden change in ocean chemistry will have major consequences on all ocean life. And that’s exactly what we’re doing right now by pumping tons of carbon in the atmosphere. Eventually if the oceans keep absorbing carbon, we might see the algae die off, along with almost all marine life (maybe some jellyfish would survive) and then toxic hydrogen sulfide may release from the ocean. It’s happened before, 250 million years ago, when 95% of species on earth died off.

The difference back then was that there were volcanoes releasing large amounts of CO2, instead of humans. But soon… once the 400 gigatons of methane in the arctic and siberian permafrost starts melting we’ll have enough CO2 and methane to trigger a dramatic change to the ocean’s chemistry… that’s when the algae, the basis for almost all marine life, will start dying off. Actually the permafrost has already started melting so hopefully you already have a safe underground bunker with its own oxygen-life-support system built in that you can move into by 2040… I’m still working on building mine.