Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

Lost in a haze of hyperreal distractions and the weakening of our body politic, we forget in fact how our planet came into being: Violent eruptions, long periods of stability, sometimes equilibrium. But its eruptions were serious, and nothing to shrug off. I'm talking extinction events like the Permian-Triassic, romantically known as the "Great Dying", a climate change nightmare to end all nightmares. The hangover took millions of years to recover from.

So it would stand to reason -- ah, those were the days -- that were such events heading our way, we'd do something about them faster than Blackwater. We'd fire indiscriminately into the encroaching dangers, run like hell to our Green zones, and wait out the storm. But we're not.

And things are getting worse. Exponentially worse.

According to a recent reports, the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change was off in its estimates. Way off, as expected if you were a student of exponents, which have a tendency not to accrue in equal chunks but snowball over themselves, growing bigger by the revolution. Speaking of snowballs, the IPCC misread our quickly shrinking sea ice, which has unmoored itself from itself and is now snowballing into the ocean-at-large at increasing rates. It figured the melt would be measurable, which is another way of saying an amount it could lowball to a public too busy with aptly named virtual realities like Survivor, Lost, Second Life and so on. But the IPCC failed to see the replicating threat on the horizon.

In short, the IPCC claimed the melt would tickle global coastlines with 20 to 60 centimetres of water, but it was wrong. The figure has now exponentially grown to two metres and climbing, which is over six feet for those on the inch standard. And if you think that's Chicken Little talking, take a look at these maps illustrating some of America's coolest cities, post-deluge. They might change your mind.

The reality is, fittingly, worthy of disaster cinema. Holes have developed in the sea ice through which water as large as Niagara Falls has plummeted back to the ocean, greasing the wheels, so to speak, for an even faster melt. Which in turn, getting back again to exponents, is pushing the ice across the sea even faster, and so on. Speaking of disaster cinema, how about this blockbuster? The glacier at Ilulissat, rumored grandpa of the iceberg that sank the Titantic, is now hurtling three times faster into the sea than it was a decade ago. Other glaciers and ice shelves are doing the same dance of doom.

And they're coming our way.

Think of them as one giant pain machine made of ice, skating across the planet to smack down some land and its self-important inhabitants. Think of it as Saddam plus Osama plus Kim Jong plus Iran plus every other creep you've been arming yourselves against. Think of it as the Bush administration, extraordinary renditioning you into Egypt for some "coercive interrogation."

But think of it. Because if the IPCC got the depth wrong, they almost certainly got the dates wrong. And they were giving an ETA of around 2100 for the worst of what global warming has to throw at humanity. That deadline has now been upgraded to, well, how does tomorrow work for you?

I'm not kidding. Because it's not just water that's plunging into the ocean and jacking up coastlines and currents, screwing the equilibrium that has allowed Earth to stay cool for thousands of years. It's also sediment, plants, animals and much more, matter of all types torn apart by the earthquakes and other violent eruptions these melts have caused. Call it the "Great Drowning." At least for now.

Because it's about to get hot in here. Real hot. Once those ice shelves melt, they'll no longer be around to reflect the sun. That will be left to the sea, which will heat and blast out the type of CO2 emissions that would make Exxon, Chevron and onward proud. And all of it will happen faster and faster until the new equilibrium comes.

Our time would be better spent on issues other than batshit pop stars or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It would be better spent on things like living, breathing, not dying by our own hands. It would be better spent thinking about how to capitalize on our own misfortune, an irony that still hasn't settled in even though I wrote it moments ago. It would be better spent working this problem than any other cultural, religious or racial hyperrealities built to sucker us into thinking we're different from each other and don't want our spaces invaded.

Because we're not different from each other in the slightest. We're all earthlings, and we're all going to find out what that means before 2100 comes to pass. Likely we will find out that we are different not from each other, but from every other species in the universe. Which means our time would be better spent right now, not tomorrow, not when our kids wake up and ask us, "What the fuck were you thinking?" We want to have a good answer for them. We had them, after all. We should have known better.

Comments

[pixiedust]

After reading all the back and forth from the left and right, I was bored. The scientific points are good, but it all comes down to our consumption of everything. All countries, all cultures and all people are contributing to the ruin of this planet without regard for future generations. When your dead and gone, who cares what the rest of civilization has to contend with? But I'm not afraid. I could move to another state, but I don't want to get shot by some redneck postal worker. Or how about a rapist that lives in a peaceful valley somewhere in Montana? Maybe a bridge will collapse under me on my way home from work in Minnesota? Perhaps I'll loose everything I own in a tornado, ice storm, flood, fire or hurricane? I plan to live my life and do what I can to help with pollution and global warming, but without feeling guilty for being here at this point in time. Life is now and life is good and well-deserved.

[nippersdad]

Actually, not all countries, cultures and people are contributing to the problem without regard to future generations. Many cultures and peoples never did contribute to the problem and not all countries are equal in their contribution to the problem. Many are actually trying to reverse the problem.

The U.S. represents 25% of the global warming gasses produced by 5% of the global population and probably represents most of the effort to downplay the problem. The problem here in the U.S. is not so much global warming gasses as the almost uniquely American exceptionalist attitude of who cares what happens to the rest of the world when you are dead, life is good and well deserved and, anyway, this is all really quite boring. I'll do something about it when I can fit it into my busy schedule. Don't worry, be happy!

The "it's all about me" attitude is what is preventing the solution.

[Tubby]

If the leftist "scientists" were at all correct this time around, it would merely be acknowledging routine geological climate change. The Ice Age was caused by the flatulence of Mammoths, so then The Great Warming is being caused by Man and his CO2 emmissions. (Just imagine! Six (6) Billion humans exhaling 2 cubic feet of CO2 12 times per minute! THAT IS 37,843,200,000,000,000 CUBIC FEET OF CO2 PUMPED INTO THE AIR EACH YEAR!

And you guys worry about cars and factories??

[nippersdad]

The difference is that cars and factories release vast amounts of carbon that had been out of circulation from natural processes for millions of years. That which is released as "flatulence" or human exhalations had already been accounted for in the climate balance. You are talking about apples and oranges.

The biggest forseeable problem on the horizon is a negative feedback loop in which thawing soils and warming oceans release vastly more carbon in the form of methane; carbon dioxide on steroids. This, in turn, will cause the process to speed up uncontrollably.

carbon has the effect of acidifying oceans, making them increasingly uninhabitable to creatures not evolved to handle the PH levels. Marine life will start to go extinct. Rising temperatures will cause desertification of much of the present temperate and tropical zones of the world. Terrestrial creatures will start to go extinct.

Storms will intensify and grow increasingly frequent until such a time as ocean currents cease to flow and distribute heat from the equator to the poles. Extent habitable lands will then burn and the newly created breadbaskets will freeze. Mankind will then go extinct.

But, otherwise, "leftist scientists" are just acknowledging routine "geological" sic changes. Don't worry, be happy. This is the rapture that conservatives have all been waiting so impatiently for.

[dejavu2]

Wilson33 I have a question for you. Why is it those on the right have the biggest problem doing what's right? It's always a bunch of excuses why we shouldn't work to save the environment. Let's not recycle, let's not invest in renewable energy, let's not conserve. Better yet let's keep our heads firmly planted in the sand. Let's be lazy. Let's exploit this earth for profit. Those on the right will look back at this time and regret their lazy, money/power hungry mentality when their grandchildren look them in the eye and, to quote a bumper sticker I saw, ask "What are trees?"

[Economike]

I accidently flagged you, please ignore.

[immafreake]

it's mother nature against the talking monkeys in the ultimate race to destroy the planet!!!!!!!
whoo-hoo!!!

[wldnswmmr]

Good stuff and urgently needed. One point: I was at the U.S.-China Climate Change Forum a year ago in Berkeley and heard Inez Fung, a climatologist at Lawrence Berkeley Lab with particular expertise in oceanic issues, talk about this problem of positive feedback loops. The computer models are pretty good and will yield good data run backwards in time or forward, but the overwhelming complexity of the positive feedbacks you're writing about, such as the enhanced ice melt from the lubricating effect of water reaching bedrock through holes in the glacier, make it hard to anticipate all the variables. But in general, she said, the tendency is for the IPCC and others to underestimate the problem because the loops so often seem to head in one direction - positive toward warming. Also, she noted that the political hostility in the US to such bad news (Inhofe, etc) makes them leery of talking about worst case. Suffice to say that she began her talk by telling us that all the scientiests working on this are "very, very scared." The Arctic picture, by recent reports, looks like what they were expecting in 2050, not 2007.. I agree it ought to concern us more than Britney's parenting skills.

[Wilson33]

How original! More doom and gloom from the left!

So a question then. Since this is expotentially happening now, why have we not heard of one coastal area being flooded or having rising sea levels? Not one. But all of this has been happening now, faster than we thought no less, but yet, no reports of any flooding anywhere. Hmmm.

And since you raised it and said that the IPCC was wrong about the amount and probably the time, then why is so hard to believe that they have the whole damn thing wrong? And wasn't the IPCC behind the whole global cooling fiasco of the 70s? Wow, they were WRONG on that one weren't they?

And this warming is not man-made, as much as the left has pumped that lie, so what are we to do about it anyways?

[BillZBubb]

How unoriginal! More denial of the facts from the right!

If you understood exponents, you wouldn't ask your foolish question. Exponential growth starts out slowly enough, but begins to steadily balloon. We are still in the slow end of the growth but are still seeing rising sea levels. Several islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans are already going under.

This warming IS in large part due to human activity. It is the right that is pumping the lie that it is not. Unless, of course virtually every climate scientist not paid by the energy industry is a leftist.

[Wilson33]

I understand expotentially, thanks. That is exactly why I asked the question. There is ABSOUTELY no proof that humans are causing the climate change...none. Al Gore's movie is proving to be false more and more everyday. See England.

Again, all I am saying is that climate change is real, but it is not caused by humans and can not be reversed by humans. We can only adapt just like every other species has done for millions of years.

[fact finder]

Wilson33 have you not heard of the islands in the south Pacific that have completely flooded. You just haven't taken the time to look for the evidence. Try www.globalresearch.ca. Get there then click on the climate side bar.

[Wilson33]

How original! More doom and gloom from the left!

So a question then. Since this is expotentially happening now, why have we not heard of one coastal area being flooded or having rising sea levels? Not one. But all of this has been happening now, faster than we thought no less, but yet, no reports of any flooding anywhere. Hmmm.

And since you raised it and said that the IPCC was wrong about the amount and probably the time, then why is so hard to believe that they have the whole damn thing wrong? And wasn't the IPCC behind the whole global cooling fiasco of the 70s? Wow, they were WRONG on that one weren't they?

And this warming is not man-made, as much as the left has pumped that lie, so what are we to do about it anyways?

[wldnswmmr]

Your comments would come as a surprise to the inhabitants of Tuvalu and also Papua New Guinea, where the roads are now routinely flooded by high tides associated with global warming. Also, rising sea levels in South Florida are altering the ecology there because of salt water intrusion into mangrove swarmps. Take a look at Keeling's data on CO2 concentrations if you want to understand the difference between the 1970s and now. About a 50% increase in world population and much more extensive industrialization.

[CyrusBeaucephus]

no no the troll is right--Professor Limbaugh's Theory is that since someone in the 70's predicted an Ice Age (using slide rule and the data available at that time_---that NO FUTURE PREDICTION FOR CLIMATE CHANGE WILL EVER BE VALID!! no matter how well-supported it is by facts

You go Wilson33-hit 'em with that 'old ice' meme again--it must grow more satisfying with each repetition. The Bible doesn't mention Global Warming! Why should the rest of us even care?!? right Wilson?

[Wilson33]

But again, you have not said that they were WRONG back in the 70s. I don't care what the difference is between the 70s and now. That's not the point, the point is that with the data they had then, just like the data that they have now, they came to the conclusion ("fact") that we were cooling and it was going to be disasterous. They got that conclusion with the data they had.

So, fast forward to now, using the data they have NOW, they are concluding that we (humans) are the main cause of warming and the main fix to it. Isn't there a possiblity they are wrong, that it is just mother nature and we did not contribute to it and can not fix it?

[Wilson33]

And can you show me data that shows that Tuvalu and Papua NG were not dealing with flooding of the same areas thousands or tens of thousands of years ago? And that this is just cyclical?

No, you can't. You simply draw conclusions based on what you see now, with no comparison to what it was doing thousands or tens of thousands of years ago.

[Waubay]

And your credential are??? Are we talking to a climate scientist with many years of scientific research data - or most likely some yahoo who 'thinks' he knows what he is talking about. The data collection available to climate scientists now cannot even be compared to what they had in the 70s. The press is to blame for making this into a 'controversy.' They give equal time to those who have an opinion and those who have put in years of research to back up their information.

[Wilson33]

Again, all of the data that we have today, compared with 30 years ago, is better and we still can't predict the weather 3 days out. We can't predict the hurricane season. The last two years have been WAY off. Why is this? Because, and you all have heard it before, weather and climate are not exact sciences, never will be, but yet you are all so ready to believe this. Its just mind boggling to say the least.

And for everyone to just ignore the sun's role in all of this is mind boggling as well. Can you explain why other planets in our solar system are warming too? Does Mars have coal burning power plants or SUVs destroying it as well?

[morphizm]

Wilson33, thanks for writing but you are wrong about absolutely everything. But rather than waste my time arguing with someone in love with their own innocence, I suggest you move to Florida. Stick around there for awhile. Pick a place close to the coast. Get a tan, drink a margarita. By all means, enjoy yourself. And do me a favor and don't move anywhere else after that. Actually, do us all a favor.

[wldnswmmr]

LOL. That could become the new long walk off a short pier. Take a long snooze on a low beach.

[Wilson33]

Typical response from someone who has just been burned by common sense.

And I do enjoy Florida, frequently!

[dadw5boys]

After reading your article I can not help but think of how CREDIT has allowed man to seek forgein markets and invade lands.
The same way the FEDERAL RESERVE works today.
This endless supply of debt creating money has given rise to over indulgence, waste and destruction of our natural resources. The higher the debt the faster resources must be turned into grabage.
The Interest Monster presses onward DEMANDING businesses to seek new streams of income. Just about anything even if it will hurt their own children now or in the furture.
If the Federal Reserve System had never been allowed where would man kind be? Growth would be limited by the amount of money the government spent into the Economy and there would be no interest to be paid. So there would never be a rush to make money just to pay the interest payments.
The Natural Resources would only be used as needed not to feed to ever growing debt into money machine.
Now water is going to be a doubled edged sword. Little to drink but lots to swim in. We should be asking the same question about Gloable Warming and our Economy.
"HOW LONG CAN YOU TREAD WATER"