Interdisciplinary research findings: One; talking points
"Tomorrow's Climate is Today's Challenge." 1
Tomorrow's climate is today's decision. 2
Having altered the face of the earth, the recent changes in the chemistry of the oceans is a clear indicator of the human alteration of the atmosphere. The immensity of these persistent, prolonged and pernicious impacts will linger for centuries.
In reshaping the planet to better meet the consuming habits of seven billion inhabitants our use of powerful technologies has brought humankind to an unprecedented crossroads. We have a brief window of opportunity within which to decide to reduce pollution because we are inexorably passing a threshold, or point of no return.
The character of this pending threshold involves the capacity of the planet's physical and chemical conditions to sustain our wants and the capacity of the earth's life to both assimilate the excess pollution and adapt swiftly to new levels of carbon dioxide not seen for 800,000 years. To do these things simultaneously without diminishing the earth's functional resilience to sustain future natural and human population growth with the requisite amount of biological diversity is the task of this century.
The facts are:
- Every year 1.5 to 2.1 ppm increase in carbon dioxide emissions is measured (data from over 50 years). 392.4 ppm, (399.76 ppm 5-2013). NOAA: Monthly trends.
- Call that – An atmospheric debt index3
- We have a brief window of opportunity within which to act.
- The sooner we act the less compound interest accumulates and abrupt climate change increases our atmospheric debt.
- That debt is now having effects on ocean pH and incidence of earlier spring in the northern hemisphere, plant and animal interdependencies, & loss of soil moisture.
- Record low in the extent of Arctic Ocean ice cover extent4 is accompanied by loss of significant glacial ice.
- There is no more important rapid ice cover loss than in the Himalayan plateau where melt-water serves nearly three of the earth's seven billion people flowing into five major rivers in east and south Asia.
- Solutions exist now worldwide but are not competitively financed, nor widely adopted as to be effective in mitigating, or minimizing our impacts on the air, biodiversity, and oceans.
- People today are suffering from abrupt climate change now in Darfur, Tuvalu, Maldives, Palau, Pakistan, Tibet, Australia, Alaska, the Andes, and on the southern plains. ......
Germany, Israel, and China for example have taken the lead from the US and are among a dozen examples of industrial "low carbon" technological approaches to meeting water, food, energy, and transport needs.
- solar electric energy financing
- solar thermal energy for water heaters
- solar energy photovoltaic & thermal systems
1) Energy conservation regulations, not
2) Electricity consumption incentives
3) Electricity pricing 11th highest nationally
Rocky Mountain Institute or "RMI"
"has documented how we could reduce current energy use by 70 per cent to 90 per cent without changing our current lifestyle."
Level playing field: the same or no subsidies:
coal, oil, gas & nuclear receive billions / annum.7
Not quite four and a half percent of the global population, Americans are not leading to mitigate, or adapt.
√ 314,539,977 American population
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7,044,410,214 World population 8
"The answer is that virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization."
Lonnie Thompson, Ph.D. glaciologist, U. of Ohio, 2010, quoted in Joseph Romm, Language Intelligence, p. 182.
1 The United Kingdom's slogan for a National Climate Change education campaign under Blair-Brown. The Climate Change Video Clip. The film's voice over begins, "Life depends on the warmth of the sun being trapped by the layer of gases that surround the earth..."
2 WASHINGTON, July 16, 2010 - Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia, says a new report from the U.S. National Research Council.
3 Example: 0.000393 is expressed as 393 ppm or parts per million concentration. The number sound small, but has a huge impact out of all proportion to its percent of the global atmosphere
Signatory nations in 1992 to the UNFCC, "are legally bound to reduce worldwide emissions of the six greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane nitrous oxide, ozone, CFCs, and halocarbons). These gases are trace gases that account for less than 1% of the atmosphere, yet have a big impact on the chemical regulation of our climate, So much so that carbon dioxide could be viewed as the compound that acts as the air & ocean's thermostat because it retains heat.
4 News, "Arctic Sea Ice levels to reach Record Low..." John Vidal, environment editor, The Guardian, Thursday 23 August 2012 09.11 EDT. Arctic sea ice levels to reach record low within days." The dramatic melt expected over the next week signals that global warming is having a major impact on the polar region.
5 What Germany Can Teach the U.S.: Rewrite Old Laws, By James R. Maxeiner. ATLANTIC Magazine. 6 MAR 29 2012, 7:00 AM ET 49. "Laws go out of date, so why can't the U.S. regularly revise and update them, as some European countries do?"
6The California Experiment, By RONALD BROWNSTEIN. ATLANTIC Magazine, October, 2009.
"Busted budgets, failing schools, overcrowded prisons, grid locked government—California no longer beckons as America’s promised land. Except, that is, in one area: creating a new energy economy. But is its path one the rest of the nation can follow?"
7The True Cost of Coal, By ROBERT CULLEN, ATLANTIC Magazine, December, 1993.
"Coal accounts for more than half of America's electricity because it is so cheap—and it remains cheap because no one pays the very large hidden costs of its mining and burning,"
8 Population as of 20:01 UTC (EST+5) Oct. 08, 2012.
Joseph V. Siry, Preserving Biological Diversity Despite Losses Due to Abrupt Climate Change.
Guide to Technical climate facts on the web
Archer | Christianson | Gelbspan | James Hansen, 04 : Hansen 06 | McKibben| Schmidt | Weart | Wigley
