Climate News

By BJ

A couple of important stories from the last couple of weeks regarding the deteriorating state of our climate. The first notes that carbon dioxide output is at record levels.

The world pumped up its pollution of the chief man-made global warming gas last year, setting a course that could push beyond leading scientists' projected worst-case scenario, international researchers said Thursday.

The new numbers, called "scary" by some, were a surprise because scientists thought an economic downturn would slow energy use. Instead, carbon dioxide output jumped 3 percent from 2006 to 2007.

That's an amount that exceeds the most dire outlook for emissions from burning coal and oil and related activities as projected by a Nobel Prize-winning group of international scientists in 2007.

Meanwhile, forests and oceans, which suck up carbon dioxide, are doing so at lower rates than in the 20th century, scientists said. If those trends continue, they put the world on track for the highest predicted rises in temperature and sea level.

The quote at the very bottom is the most telling.

If this trend continues for the century, "you'd have to be luckier than hell for it just to be bad, as opposed to catastrophic," said Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider.

Given our track record so far, I'd bet on the catastrophic, and part of the reason for that is contained in the second story. Because while carbon dioxide is the gas we've been trained to look at when discussing Climate Change, it is far from the only greenhouse gas, and one of the bigger menaces resulting from a warming Arctic is now clearly raising its head.

The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.

. . .

Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.

In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.

. . .

The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.

But remember, to actually do anything to mitigate or adapt to these kinds of changes might be harmful to our economy, (what's left of it).

We are so screwed.

Comments

[Cheryl Rofer]

But remember, to actually do anything to mitigate or adapt to these kinds of changes might be harmful to our economy, (what's left of it).

I realize that this bit of common wisdom has been much repeated. (Or are you being sarcastic?) But I think it may be incorrect.

One of the many things our economy needs is a firmer basis in real enterprises, like manufacturing. Development of state-of-the art green technology in many areas, from automotive vehicles to clean chemical industries, could help to get us out of the hole that overreliance on passing paper (also known as the buck), otherwise known as the financial industry.

Seems to me that President Obama will need to pass an economic stimulus package. It should include encouragement of such an industry.

BTW, when the chemical industry complied with clean air regulations, it generally improved its profits. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions and moving to green chemistry should do the same.

[BJ Bjornson]

I was being sarcastic Cheryl. Much as you stated, I believe smart investment into alternative energy and other green technologies, not to mention upgrading North America’s infrastructure, would help both the financial and climate crisis. I won’t say “solve” since I think they’ve grown to big for that now, but they would certainly mitigate the problems and make recovery far easier and rapid.