Humanity is converting the Earth into a gas chamber by pouring lethal amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The consequences are profound: Scientists estimate that in less than a single lifetime from now, we will be living in a planet far different from anything that our ancestors have experienced over the past two million years. Bill McKibben's widely read article, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," tells our story with the stark simplicity of three numbers:
How does mainstream science interpret these numbers? The following quotes are taken from the highly respected scientific journal, Nature. "The mean global temperature by 2070 (or a few decades earlier) will be higher than it ever has since the human species evolved." Humans are now forcing a transition with "the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience." "The net effect is that once a critical transition occurs, it is extremely difficult or even impossible for the system to return to its previous state." We are less than a single generation from crossing climate thresholds that will move the world into unprecedented chaos and devastation.
In the past, the Earth's atmosphere was filled with a benevolent and congenial mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and other gases that have enabled life to flourish. We are radically changing the mixture and tipping the Earth into a new condition: The oceans are turning acidic and dying; prolonged droughts and historic floods from weather extremes are becoming the norm; heat waves beyond the tolerance of people, plants, and animals are more frequent; more powerful hurricanes and storms are spreading, tropical diseases are expanding into warmer zones and, eventually, a sea level rise will flood coastal cities around the world and produce massive migrations of people, animals, and plants. A climate crisis of this magnitude will result in massive crop failures, famines, food riots, and the breakdown of societies.
Within a matter of decades, vast areas of the Earth are expected to no longer support human habitation or the plants and animals that have lived there for millennia. We cannot say we were not warned. Two decades ago, in 1992, some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued a "Warning to Humanity" that concluded with the following sentence: "A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated." Clearly, the human community has not made a "great change" in our stewardship of the Earth and the biosphere of our planet is now being irretrievably mutilated!
What are the ethics of irretrievably mutilating an entire planet? When will humanity express its moral outrage that it is wrong to devastate an entire planet for countless generations to come, just to satisfy the consumer desires of a fraction of humanity for a single lifetime? The Earth is our only home in our journey through the universe. What are the ethics of ruining our precious home within the space of a single generation? This generation of humans is committing "eco-cide" or the murder of the Earth's environment. This means we are committing more than an unimaginable crime against future generations of humans: We are committing the murder of a large portion of the Earth's biosphere with all of her animals and plants. How can this generation explain its inconceivable disregard for future generations and allow such a tragedy to unfold?
This is runaway insanity! Where are the national and global political leaders of the Earth? For decades they have done little more than talk while we drift toward catastrophe. Where is the mass media that has a responsibility to inform the public they serve? They are abdicating their responsibilities and using adolescent entertainment to promote a superficial, consumerist lifestyle of ruin. Where is the ethical voice of our churches and great religious institutions? Many are preaching a gospel of material success as God's reward for the faithful. Where are the great educational institutions in this debate over humanity's future? Locked into narrow disciplines that ignore the global system in its wholeness, interactivity and vulnerability. Where are the psychologists and psychiatrists that work daily with delusional and insane individuals? Too ill-informed about our collective psychosis to step forth to declare the utter insanity of our inaction. Every major institution and profession with the responsibility to be awake, mature and engaged is, instead, either enabling or ignoring the Earth's slide into disaster.
What words are adequate to awaken ourselves? What is the expression of moral outrage that is equal to our suicidal destruction of the biosphere? Perhaps the penetrating language of Frederick Douglas can break through our malaise. Douglas escaped from slavery in 1838 and became an important American social reformer, writer and statesman. His words come from another era but seem fitting for our times as well:
"At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! Had I the ability, and could reach the nation's ear, I would today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced." -- Frederick Douglass
Feelings of rage and revenge for destroying our future are mixed with feelings of helplessness, victimization, futility, and shame. There is a more promising path for us! We can change our drift toward climate disaster into a future of opportunity and great transition. We can awaken our collective imagination and discover new narratives that serve as beacons for guiding us into a promising future. We can also summon the common sense of people around the world and give voice to our collective sanity. In an earlier blog I wrote about a new superpower that is rapidly emerging -- an "Earth Voice" movement that mobilizes the voice and conscience of the world's citizens through the global communications revolution. With new stories of our time of great transition supported by new tools of mass communication, we can cultivate a new level of collective consciousness that can transform our path of creating a gas chamber Earth into a path of sustainable prosperity.
Duane Elgin is a speaker, author and trans-partisan activist for media accountability. He is the author of "Voluntary Simplicity," "The Living Universe," "Promise Ahead," and other books. Please visit his website, www.DuaneElgin.com for free articles and videos on thriving in these challenging times.
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Read: SOON AND BRIGGS: Global-warming - Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/6/global-warming-fanatics-take-note/#ixzz25lkCHTGG
My suspicion is that Mr. Soon did this article to raise a 'check-this-out' flag to Muller and friends before they finalize the last paper on their BEST database work for formal peer review. Soon's assertion, backed by his statistician partner Briggs, is that there is an incontestably high statistical correlation between reliable sunspot (solar radiation) data and the BEST data for daily maximums. They assert that this correlation is far, far stronger than that of atmospheric CO2. Muller can easily check this and draw his own conclusions. Those of us following this science saga get to wait and see.
Regarding the AMS, my experience is that getting policy statements from professional organizations usually requires a lot of diplomatically artful language. Depending on how one wants to interpret it, notice that the last sentence does not necessarily fall under the 'unequivocal evidence' descriptor in the previous sentence. I read (can't remember where) that there is some controversy within the AMS about the way this statement evolved. Again. we wait. I find it all much more relevant than Dancing With The Stars --- don't you?
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120907/OPINION01/209070303
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBCILz_VrOY
Have you stopped driving cars with internal combustion engines?
What % of your electricity usage comes from "renewable" sources?
Would you be willing to give up daily bathing, TV, laundering after each use, AC, etc. in order to use only 100% renewable energy derived electricity?
Would you be willing to have a nuclear power plant nearby instead?
It's easy to call for everyone else to change, but are you willing for the "man" in the mirror to have to change?
I'll seriously consider CAGW when those that advocate for changes (that just happen to make them rich or famous) because of it start behaving like they believe it. Holding COP's online instead of flying thousands of people to exoctic locales would be a good start. Your actions speak louder than your words, and your actions say "there's no real reason to change, we just like selling books, having international parties, getting awards, and making millions trading carbon credits".
It is only a political agenda that requires that warming would be bad. In fact, warming is desirable and higher CO2 means more plant food and a larger food supply. As we are presently cooling, higher CO2 is definitely a good thing.
There is no downside to CO2. There is not gas in existence that can cause any detectable warming of the atmosphere, no matter what the concentration. Greenhouse gases, per se, do not exist. It is our gravity that heats the atmosphere and the Sun and oceans control the variability.
This article drags this paper down.
Get a grip. If you're going to consult McKibben for disaster scenarios then, at the very least, consult someone like Roger Pielke, Jr. for balance. You will, most likely, come away with a vastly different view of the science which, in turn, will most likely moderate your fears.
If you are so sure that man is causing global warming, why don't you show us some real evidence that man's CO2 is actually causing dangerous warming, instead of vague references to weather which has been seen many times in the past?
Thanks
JK
Pielke Jr. has taken issue with linking man-made climate change to damages related to extreme weather events; but he doesn't dispute the science behind AGW: "Climate change is a huge problem, and it's a problem linked to human activity," he told Foreign Policy magazine. He's not a guy who has a "vastly different view" of the science (he's also a professor of environmental policy and not a climate scientist, for what it's worth). An article of his worth reading is in a recent edition of Foreign Policy, entitled "Climate of Failure." See here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/climate_of_failure?page=full
Pielke Jr. also stated in a recent forum that, "...claims that particular events can be attributed in a causal fashion to human emissions of greenhouse gases are simply unscientific if not fundamentally incoherent." I respect Pielke Jr. precisely because he does not have "a side". Further, it does not take a climate scientist to review the empirical data and see if it passes the smell test. Pielke Jr. looks at the data, ALL OF THE DATA, and, from my reading of his publications and blogs, has serious issues with what today's crop of climate alarmists call evidence. If Duane had bothered to review or better yet, interview him, his article may have read much different. Amazing what educating one's self with ALL OF THE DATA can do.
To home in and concentrate on one particular factor affecting the atmosphere is illogical.
There are surely hundreds, if not thousands of such factors, a few of which are understood maybe.
Curry, Lindzen, Christy, Dyson and Lovelock take this view, the first four are Departmental Heads, Emeritus Professors at top universities studying the biosphere.
Laframboise, a journalist not a scientist, has investigated and exposed the "groupthink",corruption and bias at the IPCC.
The entire biosphere, with it`s myriad complexity and infinitely beautiful systems and sub-systems, unknown, as yet, interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans, the land, the geology and the plant and animal life, cannot, surely, be reduced to a gas jar experiment on a laboratory bench.
And thank you, for saying so. I`ve been a fan of his since the seventies.
He`s recently changed his mind though. (He must have heard about mine!).
Freeman Dyson is similarly lateral in his thinking.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change
I guess you don't do much reading these days.
"The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time … it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that …
The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened …
The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now."
-- James Lovelock
In order for the human contribution of CO2 to succeed as the sole culprit, or even the principal culprit in warming the the planet to the degree suggested, each and every single atmospheric and oceanic interaction with CO2 would have to have to create positive forcing. Indeed, this is what the models show, or at least those models we are allowed to see. I challenge anyone to produce ANY significant negative forcing created by CO2's increase in the atmosphere.
The interesting thing to me is the surety of it all. There has NEVER been any doubt about the "science"; there has rather been a unhealthy, inbred, unscientific "consensus" on the topic of Global warming/climate change since the early eighties. It isn't climate science as much as it has been climate marketing.
You delivered up my point beautifully; You string together a number of "facts" as a refutation of MY assertion that none of your "facts", taken together or separately, can in ANY way be attributable to a doubling of atmospheric CO2. (pretty circular logic, ain't it?) These are not scientifically demonstrable positions, they are unrelated scare tactics. Further, virtually none of the OBSERVED data corresponds at all well to the future PREDICTED by the models. Nearly all of what you describe is either "business as usual" geophysical phenomena of the present and past. The rest is part of a phantasmagorical future that you and others have concocted for yourselves in order to scare people into behaving the way you want them to. Stop it. I know Cassandra, Cassandra is a good friend of mine; YOU sir, are no Cassandra....
Can a parking lot, a shopping mall or solar panel release oxygen, maintain the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, naturally sequester greenhouse gases that will be re-released when the ecosystem's soil is disturbed and the plants/trees deforested? When we skin ecosystems, these gases return to the atmosphere!
Can a windmill, office complex or bank contribute to the climate cooling water cycle conducted by terrestrial ecosystems; provide the nitrogen cycle, the creation and renewal of a life giving soil; purify the air and water, provide the entirety of Earth's biogeochemistry; decomposition, pollination; seed dispersal; 99% of all pest control, and the control and regulation of human disease pathogens that kill humankind?
Killing ecosystems destroys all the reasons humankind exists, and many scientists are far more concerned with skinning ecosystems than climate change. All ecosystems have feedbacks and loops to the climate and the atmosphere, and all integrated ecosystems create the life zone of Earth, the biosphere/ecosphere!
This is nonsense. It is simply pseudoscience to claim that carbon dioxide is lethal. One of its benefits is to keep the earth habitable by the greenhouse effect. There is also another kind of greenhouse effect, the enhanced greenhouse effect, which is caused by the addition of carbon dioxide to atmosphere. It is this enhanced greenhouse effect that his alleged "scientists" fear. But thanks to Ferenc Miskolczi we know now that the enhanced greenhouse effect does not exist. Using NOAA weather balloon data set that goes back to 1948 he showed that the infrared transmittance of the atmosphere has been constant for 61 years. At the same time the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by 21.6 percent. Since this addition did not cause additional absorption of outgoing IR it follows that enhanced greenhouse effect does not exist. Hence, the "scientists" predictions are worthless. Also, since they are the justification for laws mandating emissions reductions, biofuel production, carbon taxes and so on, these have lost their justification and must be repealed. Since the enhanced greenhouse effect does not exist it follows that no observed warming in the past can be a greenhouse warming. Checking the global temperature curves published by NASA, NOAA, and NCDC we find indeed that no warming within the last 100 years can be definitely identified as greenhouse warming.
We shouldn't be devouring ecosystems, that which sustains all life, for sustainable energies. Our terrestrial ecosystems naturally sequester the greenhouse gases. When the soil is disturbed, these gases are re-released into the atmosphere. When the plant biodiversity is destroyed, more of these gases are re-released. Terrestrial ecosystems cool the climate with the water cycle via transpiration. When we skin terrestrial ecosystems for solar and wind, we experience a loss of photosynthesis, and some scientists believe this is contributing to cc.
We are destroying all of man's life-support, cycles, services and systems for the ever more and more. And, we need to remember, photosynthesis seeded all life on Mother Earth.
"In Wildness is the salvation of the Earth and the preservation of all life...but seldom perceived by man."
These photos were taken starting at the beginning of July before the hot days came and before the drought started.
You can learn much more by reading the notes on the images below.
This is happening all over the planet.
https://chemtrailsinourskies.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/danger-chemtrails-rain-killing-trees-and-plants/