These pictures come from EARTH -- what the newspapers are calling 'the largest group show in the planet's history,' or 'the first art show visible from outer space,' or just 'big art.'
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AgingLady said on 27 Saturday 2010 pm30 2:32 pm: Thank you for these photos. I dare to hope. Lots of people seem aware and willing to respond. My neighbors think the whole thing is a hoax. So I am really glad to see there are populations around the globe responding to our shared climate problems. |
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Inspiring
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We needed satellites and airplanes to capture these images -- special thanks to our friends at DigitalGlobe, who have donated the services of their bird orbiting at 435 miles above the equator.
But we also need tens of thousands of volunteers on the ground. Some were well-known artists, who thought up these images; far more were people who wanted to send a message to the rest of the planet. That message is pretty simple: climate change is already doing damage: raising the sea, spreading the desert, melting the ice. But it goes beyond that. People are also saying: we know what to do about it, from building windmills to installing solar panels.
In many of the images you'll see the number 350 -- a potent sign of the newfound collaboration between artists and scientists. Just three years ago a NASA team was the first to set 350 parts per million co2 as the maximum safe amount in the atmosphere -- a level we've already gone past. There's no bigger crisis the planet has ever faced, so it makes sense that there's never been bigger art to make the case.
Find out more about the 350 EARTH project and get involved here.
Follow Bill McKibben on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billmckibben
Subhankar Banerjee: Thankful for Polar Bear Habitat But Shell Must Not Go There
Johann Hari: The Next Crash Will Be Ecological -- and Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts
Jim Bell: 'Postcards From Mars': 15 Amazing Pictures Of The Red Planet From New Book (PHOTOS)
Nikolas Kozloff: Cancun Climate Summit: Will Brazil Step Up to the Plate?
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Mountain snow pack in the American west has been in decline for over a decade.
Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A
is a theme issue on climate change:
"Four degrees and beyond: the potential for a global temperature increase of four degrees and its implications"
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc
You can download pdfs of all of the papers in the issue through tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 30.
Papers:
- Beyond ‘dangerous’ climate change: emission scenarios for a new world
- Cumulative carbon emissions, emissions floors and short-term rates of warming: implications for policy
- When could global warming reach 4°C?
- Regional temperature and precipitation changes under high-end (≥4°C) global warming
- Water availability in +2°C and +4°C worlds
- Agriculture and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa in a 4°C+ world
- Changes in the potential distribution of humid tropical forests on a warmer planet
- Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4°C world’ in the twenty-first century
- Climate-induced population displacements in a 4°C+ world
- Rethinking adaptation for a 4°C world
- The role of interactions in a world implementing adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change
http://cfact.eu/2010/11/27/cfacts-climate-depot-on-climate-redistribution
"First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore"
So CLIMATE CHANGE (or whatever the favorite term is this month) is what we knew it to be all along - SOCIALISM...........................
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Professor Edenhofer, you believe that Climate Summits such as will occur in Cancun at the end of ovember will less and less be less environmental conferences and increasingly be economic conferences. Why?
Ottmar Edenhofer: We have to free ourselves from the illusion that climate issues are purely environmental policy ones. For many countries for a long time it has been about concrete economic interests. They are only indirectly concerned with problems like the retreat or melting of glaciers, because climate policy extends today into many political areas. One thing has become increasingly clear: In the near future climate policy can redistribute the world's wealth.
SZ: How so?
OE: In the course of the 21st century not only will fossil fuels become rare, but the ability of the atmosphere to absorb additional greenhouse gases. We have more fossil fuel energy reserves in the ground than we can store in the atmosphere if we want to avoid dangerous climate change. That will not change because oil will run out. It will only lead to oil sands being used more and the liquidification of coal will become economical... Climate policy has to make sure that the majority of the fossil reserves remain in the ground and are not used. Exactly that will diminish the income and wealth of the owners of oil and gas.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2010/11/ottmar-repeats-himself.html
Nothing could be more stupidly wrong. The author is confusing 'mankind' and 'planet', as if to equate the two. This is unabashed egoism, as if all life, much less the planet, will cease to exist when the last human expires. Baloney, if anything the planet and Her remaining inhabitants will be better off. The only reason to think that human existence is somehow more important or superior to the survival of the species who will flourish in a 350+ world are those who hold that We are created in the image of God, and therefor special and more important than the rest of His creatures.
Don't get me wrong, I like being here a lot better than obliteration, and I don't have anything in particular against mankind. But this hyperbolic fluff (THE GREATEST THREAT!!!) does no one any service. Nothing today is even remotely close to:
http://www.universetoday.com/994/just-a-single-asteroid-strike-wiped-out-the-dinosaurs/
If you can't save the world without torturing the entire rest of the innocent population, then you're never going to get to Heaven.
That being said I think it's pretty clear that when someone says something like that, it's an attempt to portray the planet-wide nature of the problem, as opposed to something focused on one country or another.
It IS the greatest threat our species has ever faced.
"...against a Trojan Horse for the left..."
"But I have the edge..."
How do you see yourself, as a guardian of cool headed truth against
girlie man hysteria, as a defender of America against Trojan Horse
for the left that will disgorge its shock troops to install an oppressive
dictatorship? What?
Obviously, I do not much like you, and there is no question that you do not
like me. You see me as condescending patsy, while I see you simply as
obstacle in a crisis where time is precious and spending time with this argument
is wasting that time. Imbedded in our mutual dislike is politics. The concept of
global warming has been politicized. It is a child of the left, so they say.
Well, is it? Do you feel lucky?
I can afford to be wrong. I will be branded a fool and the world will carry on, at
least be free of a threat that maybe did finally turn out to be conspiracy dreamed
up by rabid lefties and greedy windmill companies. Or something like that.
But have the edge over you who deny. You cannot afford to be wrong. And the
quality of life of your descendants, perhaps their very lives, hang in the balance
of the equation which either you solve or fail to solve.
Do you feel lucky? Your children are waiting for your answer, because your answer
may be their worst fate. My answer won't be their worst fate if wrong. If right, it might
even save them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085359/Global-warning-We-actually-heading-new-Ice-Age-claim-scientists.html
The article states that "It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem. We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim.
British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Britain in 6,000ft of ice."
This is just one article out of many that states the opposite of the Global Warming theory.
it says toward the end, that we should continue to combat the current level of carbon dioxide,
which leaves open a lot of questions about overlap and time frame. I can only speculate
from what little is there in the article this possible scenario, that if what is claimed is in
fact true, it is on a time frame that is immense compared to the pressing time that we
have with respect to the global warming problem present now. The ice may well come,
but there is nothing in this article to suggest other than this, that when it does arrive,
the ice will cover a disaster, caused earlier by global warming, leaving a profoundly
impoverished biosphere.
But that, so far, is science fiction. There is little here to go on aside from questions.
The issue of global warming has been very thoroughly researched, and there is a huge
amount to go on in support of the grim conclusions.
The last sentence here cites the existence of many articles that state the opposite of
global warming "theory." They should be cited specifically, certainly the most compelling
of them.
First the study assumes that CO2 level goes back to the level of 280 ppm, not the 390 and rapidly rising value we have today. Second, the study is predicting that, without the present, man-made, high levels of CO2, then the Earth would move into a permanent glaciated state. This is very different from ice ages, which come and go. They are talking about an ice age that stays for at least half a million years. Third, the time frame when they are predicting this to happen is around 10,000 to 100,000 years in the future. Fourth, they acknowledge that anthropogenic CO2 will prevent it from happening.
"Our results therefore suggest thatthe actual climate system may have been geologically close (10,000–100,000 yr) to the final phase of a 50-Million year evolution from bipolar warm climates to permanent bipolar glaciation. (Presumably, future society could prevent this transition indefinitely with very modest adjustments to the atmospheric CO2 level.)"
This is the actual study:
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tcrowley/crowley_Nature08_iceages.pdf
But in the article that I am citing Professor Crowley did state "...the stark findings do not mean we should stop fighting warming. But he urged: ‘Don’t push the panic button.’
‘There’s no excuse for saying “we’ve got to keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,”’ he told Reuters. ‘Geologically it’s tomorrow, but we have lots of time to argue about the appropriate level of greenhouse gases.’"
Also cited in this article is "Lead author Thomas Crowley from the University of Edinburgh and Canadian colleague William Hyde say that currently vilified greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide – could actually be the key to averting the chill."
You were correct in that they did cite this would happen around 10,000 to 100,000 years in the future
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085359/Global-warning-We-actually-heading-new-Ice-Age-claim-scientists.html#ixzz16gQUcTZs
to get something going in my music connections that would sing to the skies this worrisome
song, then hit one of my own, a season of heart repair that is now complete. In the meantime,
other than having a good time correcting the spelling and grammar of sundry trolls, my primary
mission in posting on HPOST is to argue for the validity of this imminent threat, and I am very
glad that you have a permanent blog here. I plug Ann Hancock and the Climate Protection
Campaign every so often, and Carl Mears had a pointed call to arms article in the Press
Democrat yesterday. It with the Climate Protection Campaign, its lecturers, that I build the
factual base for my arguments.
Some of us are not asleep. Your wake up calls are a part of the reason.
We don't want to go to a stone-age system, we want to change the base for the system we have. I like my tech toys, and I think I can keep them with a different energy source. Using what is currently available doesn't change that, and burning a little more fossil fuels to achieve a net reduction is worth it.
Before y'all mouth off with all the anti-science junk, think about who you're supporting with your comments: BP, Shell and Exxon, the Koch Brothers, Massey Coal and Chevron. Do they have your best interests in mind? I didn't think so.
But there is no need to use dubious, unsettled science to try and scare more people into believing what you want. And the statistic that says 97% of (surveyed) climate scientists support AGW is about as convincing as saying 100% of Catholic Bishops "know" that life begins at conception so abortion is murder. Support of AGW is the mealticket of most climate scientists...what would you expect them to say?
Q: Why can't science deniers understand the difference between science and religion?
A: Because they are science deniers, of course.
Nope, not at all. Those are so completely different that they are at absolutley opposite ends of the spectrum of human endeavors. Bishops are told what to beleive by the Pope. They require absolutely no other proof, nothing at all to back up an opinion than the Pope tells them so. They are completely dedicated to that hierarchy. To them, the Pope is God's messenger on Earth, do deify the Pope is to defy God himself.
Not one single scientist would ever adopt a point of view simply because am authority figure told them to. To do so flies against everything they have dedicated their lives to. science is the pursuit of truth, as established by evidence. Evidence is established by the painstakingly careful collection of data, observations of the world, and by forming theories that fit with those observations. Any discrepancy between theory and observation means that the truth has not yet been discerned. Scientists strive to uncover those errors, constantly testing theories and collecting new data. Scientists don't actually "prove" theories, but increase confidence levels as the theory is tested over and over. Each step in the process increases the confidence level. Climate theory has passed many, many tests, and is currently at a very high confidence level, about 99%.
Now to your argument. Meteors tend to strike with little warning, and the technology required
to deflect or destroy them is tentative and iffy. I wouldn't want to roll dice there.
Global warming is progressive and pernicious in its early stages. Critical threads in the warp
and weave of the ecosphere, in the food chain for example, can be irreparably damaged before
there is compelling evidence of the consequences. One can for awhile cherry pick evidence
with which to argue against its reality as well, a cold snap here, an eddy in the overall trend
there. The big picture says that it is real, and it is already so far down the road that it may
already be too late to avert catastrophe. (continued)
But on that one nobody, not even Bill McKibben, is sure. If he were, he would be doing other
things, because his "Paul Revere Ride," all the research that supports the contents of his
clear and compelling lectures, is more than a full time job.
We need now to be realistic and optimistic. We need to be realistic in understanding the
magnitude of the threat, absolutely beyond experience and imagination. We need to be optimistic
about what we do not know, and that is whether it is inevitable, whether we can mitigate its
impact, save ourselves. I am 70. I'll probably escape the worst of it, but if I live to 90, I may
wish that I hadn't. But I have a grandson, 16, a brilliant poet who would rather not write
an ongoing requiem for nature as a career. We owe our roll of the dice to the future. That
carries responsibility. We play to the worst case and hope that we are fools. I wish we would
turn out to be just that. But there I will not roll dice, I am very well informed. We are not fools.
Also, you can forget doing the Robinson Jeffers act of dismissing humans while the deer
and the antelope play. If we go, one hell of a lot also goes.